Adding Horror to Your Games: Folk Horror

 The Night Companion has a ton of sections on various tropes of horror subgenres to provide tips and advice on how to run games in these styles. To my embarrassment, however, I completely overlooked folk horror in those sections. Here's a section on how to add folk horror to your games to supplement the information in that book. 

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Folk Horror

Folk horror uses elements of folklore, old wives' tales, and legend to add horror to a story. It focuses on isolation, on the fear of the unknown, and of the alien "thing in the dark" as other types of horror, particularly Gothic horror, but it puts its own spin on it. In folk horror, often the horror comes from the actions of the people facing the supernatural element as much as it does from the supernatural itself. Folk horror often revolves around dark cults dedicated to Satanism or obscure and twisted pagan roots. It almost always takes place in a rural setting far removed from city life. 

The term was coined in 1970, applied to the film The Devil's Touch. It has since been applied to a wide range of films--some even claim that the seminal slasher series Candyman applies as folk horror due to the specific approach it takes, though these films definitely fall more into the urban horror / supernatural slasher picture mold, despite using an urban legend at their core. 

Folk horror was wildly popular in Great Britain in the 1970s, and a glut of films in the genre appeared out of British studios in that time. Going back even further in literature, many Colonial horror stories can retroactively apply as folk horror, such as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," or "Young Goodman Brown." Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is a more modern take on the genre.

The first three films that scholars almost universally consider to fall squarely within folk horror are Witchfinder General, The Blood on Satan's Claw, and The Wicker Man. Perhaps the most well-known modern takes on the genre are The VVitch and Midsommar. The latter, indeed, has been accused of being little more than a stealth remake of The Wicker Man with the serial numbers filed off. It could very well be argued that the three films in the Blair Witch series operate as modern Folk Horror. 

Specific elements of folk horror include: 

• A rural setting, particularly one with vast woods, which are painted as foreboding
• Fear of the unknown: a dark spirit of some sort, often an ancient, forgotten pagan deity or the Devil himself, haunts the woods, moors, or surrounding region. This forms "The Other."
• Simple people who often begin quite normal and/or with hope, who are gradually worn down by the unseen Other out in the dark
• Cults or degenerate followers of the Other
• Witchcraft, specifically, but presented as pure evil, either as directly associated with Satan, or as severely twisted from its original pagan roots. 
• Local legends and folklore, sometimes invented for the story.
• A slow slide into madness for the main characters, which devolves into the passing of blame and often the committing of atrocities in a panicked effort to avoid The Other
• The Other achieves a victory as the paranoia and terror of the main characters leads to tragedy
• The protagonist comes face-to-face with the Other at the end, sometimes seduced into joining it

In game terms, folk horror should absolutely make use of Madness rules, and should almost never use Cinematic rules. They should almost always be Realistic or even Gritty in their approach. These are games of attrition where the heroes aren't meant to win. 

Like all forms of horror, it can be very easy to overplay elements of Folk Horror to the detriment of your game. Always be cognizant of the boundaries of your players and if the more stark elements of this form of horror have the potential to trigger anyone at your table, consider avoiding them in game. 

To learn more about folk horror, check out the excellent documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror. It's available online to stream. The Nerdist lists a "treasure trove" of other Folk Horror resources in a recent article.

The Night Companion for the Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars role playing game is now available in print and PDF. For more tips and tricks on running a horror or urban fantasy adventure game, check it out today!