A year and a half ago, I wrote the post “Searching for the American Folk Horror Zine: An Investigation,” in which I lamented the lack of a US counterpart to popular British zines such as Hellebore, Hwaet, Psychick Albion, Weird Walk and so many others. While some of the zines have occasionally dipped into American […]| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
As I was watching 28 Years Later, an idea I’ve been chewing over for a while suddenly snapped into sharper focus. A couple of years ago, I gestured toward the strange intersection of folk horror and post-apocalyptic horror. Both subgenres express a strong back-to-the-land yearning, rooted in the real-world collective sense that modern society is […]| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
Or should I say sub-sub-genre? There’s nothing more American than a movie that showcases both our obsessive car culture and sprawling highway system. In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act with the goal of building an interstate highway system that would link all cities (defined as having a population of 50,000 or […]| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
So here I am crying in the dark of the movie theater as the trailers play. It’s all so perfectly American, the wild swings and creative risks, the power and money of Hollywood, the onscreen representations that minority groups fought for, tooth and nail, for decades. As I recline in my comfortable seat and take […]| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
I’ll be blunt: nostalgia has played no small part in bringing us to our current moment. The desire to return to a mythic past is one of the hallmarks of fascism, and now that America has allowed an openly fascist administration to take over, I don’t think my assertion is a stretch. To point out […]| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
Rankings are bullshit, so take these numbers with a grain of salt. I’ve put together my top twenty folk horror watches of the year, along with another nine that I enjoyed for various reasons. Overall, I watched close to fifty folk horror movies over the last twelve months, and most of them were very good–but […]| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
Recently, I got up the nerve to watch I Spit on Your Grave, one of the more notorious rape-revenge movies from the 1970s. Despite its reputation as a rough watch–and it is indeed rough—-I found myself oddly moved by the film, and it made me think about the fraught relationship that female characters in the […]| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
It’s been a while since I’ve done much more than the occasional book review. Moving from South Korea back to the United States has pretty much kicked my ass and turned my whole world upside down. That’s not necessarily bad, though; some nice things are happening as well. I figured I’d pop in and give […]| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
These Things That Walk Behind Me is a terrific new collection of weird, dark fiction from David Surface. My first exposure to Surface’s work was in Unquiet Slumbers: An Anthology of Folk Horror, wh…| The Harvest Maid’s Revenge
Things Resurface is an occasional series in which I write films and TV series from in and around the ‘Folk Horror’ genre. While the spine of this series comes from the Severin films’ ‘All The Haunt…| Taskerland
Tender is the debut novel by Lauren Du Plessis. It plunges the reader straight into the life of archaeobotanist Nell, an anxious young woman who has lost her stable job documenting finds on pre-con…| What I Think About When I Think About Reading
Things Resurface is an occasional series in which I write films and TV series from in and around the ‘Folk Horror’ genre. While the spine of this series comes from the Severin films’ ‘All The Haunts Be Ours’ box-sets, it will also venture further afield. The other posts in this series can be found here. […]| Taskerland
Things Resurface is an occasional series in which I write films and TV series from in and around the ‘Folk Horror’ genre. While the spine of this series comes from the Severin films’ ‘All The Haunt…| Taskerland
Jonathan reviews Rowe Irvin's debut psychological folk horror LIFE CYCLE OF A MOTH: "deeply moving and utterly compelling. It heralds Irvin as an exciting new voice in the literary Weird."| Fantasy-Hive
Explore the Irish(?) origins of Remmick, the main antagonist of Ryan Coogler's 2025 folk-horror film Sinners| Irish Myths
The history of the bundle of neopagan movements known as “Wicca” is contentious. Almost as soon as it hit the public consciousness in the 1950s, it splintered, these schisms and off-sho…| Jumbled Thoughts of a Fake Geek Boy
Local Haunts was released at the end of March by Influx Press, and has been on sale for around two months at the time of writing. I’ve resisted talking more about it on here so far, largely because I wanted to see what the general reaction was rather than pre-empting it. Thankfully, after having done a number of events in which the response has been …| Celluloid Wicker Man
We’ve had a hot couple of weeks in Manchester. It has felt like summer and the cover of Adam S Leslie’s Lost in the Garden called to me from Book Mountain. I wanted an adventure that wo…| What I Think About When I Think About Reading
Adam Scovell’s third novel is loosely based on his own memories of growing up on the Wirral, Merseyside, and, through his usual mix of prose and photographic fragments, examines how a place a…| What I Think About When I Think About Reading
Things Resurface is an occasional series in which I write films and TV series from in and around the ‘Folk Horror’ genre. While the spine of this series comes from the Severin films’ All The Haunts…| Taskerland
Things Resurface is an occasional series in which I write films and TV series from in and around the ‘Folk Horror’ genre. While the spine of this series comes from the Severin films’ All The Haunts…| Taskerland
Learn more about Trett Films' Josh Trett: his fears, his projects, why he likes horror, and more.| Slow Burn Horror
OK, first off a bit of housekeeping about Season/Series numbering. The first full Ncuti Gatwa-fronted season of Doctor Who is being marketed as “Season One” (the word I hear is that Dis…| Jumbled Thoughts of a Fake Geek Boy
Exciting news! The finalists for the World Fantasy Awards 2022 have been announced, and I’m delighted to have been nominated in the category ‘Special Award—Non-professional’ for Hellebore. You can see the full list of nominees here.| Maria J. Pérez Cuervo
French journalist, screenwriter, and producer Laurent Coureau interviewed me about Hellebore and folk horror for the veteran e-zine LaSpirale.Org. You can read my interview (in French) here, or the original Q + A (in English) below.| Maria J. Pérez Cuervo
The Wild Gods awaken. Issue 2 of Hellebore is out now.| Maria J. Pérez Cuervo
I’m thrilled to say I’m editing HELLEBORE, a small press magazine devoted to British folk horror and the occult, featuring words by Ronald Hutton, Katy Soar, John Reppion, Verity Holloway, Dee Dee Chainey, David Southwell, Mercedes Miller, and myself, and art by Paul Watson and Eli John. You can order The Sacrifice Issue here.| Maria J. Pérez Cuervo