folk horror

noun

A subgenre of horror fiction that uses elements of folklore, such as a rural setting, isolation, and themes of superstition or paganism such as human sacrifice.

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Meanings

nounfolk horror (uncountable)
  1. uncountableA subgenre of horror fiction that uses elements of folklore, such as a rural setting, isolation, and themes of superstition or paganism such as human sacrifice.
    1 more example

    This means connecting disparate forms of media through their shared summoning of these themes and ideas rather than looking at the commercial reasons behind certain cycles of film and television; it is instead about what is attempting to be unleashed that is at the heart of Folk Horror and not simply the decisions of money men tapping into a lucrative popularisation of the occult, the paranoid or the ‘wyrd’.

    2017, Adam Scovell, Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange, Leighton Buzzard: Auteur, →ISBN, page 8
Cite this entry
APA

folk horror. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/folk%20horror

MLA

“folk horror.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/folk%20horror. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “folk horror,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/folk%20horror.

Source: folk horror on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.