The Dark Roots of Folk Horror | A Deep Dive + 5 Underrated Folk Horror Films

Welcome to Café Crashdown, your haunted hideaway for all things eerie, cinematic, and just a little bit cursed. I’m Kayla—curator of the uncanny—and today, we’re venturing deep into one of horror’s most quietly chilling corners: folk horror.

You’ve probably felt it before—watching a film where the forest seems too still, the village a little too welcoming, and the people a bit too obsessed with rituals you’re not supposed to ask about. That, my friend, is the uncanny grip of folk horror.

It’s not about jump scares or gore (though there can be plenty of both). Folk horror whispers. It unsettles. It reminds us that, for all our tech and modernity, we’re never really far from the old ways… and that some places never moved on at all.

Let’s pull back the veil on this haunting subgenre—where it came from, why it still haunts us—and then I’ll share five underrated folk horror films that absolutely deserve a spot on your watchlist.