STEVE CARROLL WRITES

The following column was originally printed in Justin Marriott's Paperback Fanatic 47, which was published in July of 2023. You can buy a copy of it  here. There is something inherently unsettling about being in deeply rural locations where we, considering ourselves as enlightened and educated intellectuals, find ourselves confronted with beliefs and superstitions that seem backward and downright uninformed to our modern sensibilities. It can sometimes be as simple as walking into a gas station in the middle of nowhere and suddenly feeling like we’ve stepped into another era of history and speaking to a representative of the local citizenry feels like navigating a wide gulf of both colloquial language and seemingly alien culture. It leaves us feeling decidedly ‘off’ and somehow inadequate. This discomfort lies at the heart of folk horror. Though the term ‘folk horror’ didn’t enter into the modern vernacular until...

I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of the   novella,  Joey Leonard’s Last Horror Movie Marathon  by Kevin Lucia for review. Little did I know that   my commitment would   cause me to read the entire 175-page tale in a single sitting (something I   rarely do). I don’t say that as a begrudging by-product of   compulsion to   complete my review; I simply had to keep reading to find out the resolution to   the central mystery of this propulsive page-turner. Right off the bat, I knew I was exactly the intended   audience for this short book. It starts with a dedication of sorts that reads:  To all   of us who thrived   during the age of Be Kind, Rewind . That was certainly me as I lived for those   Friday night VHS video rental runs to acquire movies that inevitably kept   me   and my friends up all night. And much like our protagonist, Joey Leonard, I   also was first and foremost a horror movie afi...

I have been on a bit of a folk horror kick recently . I have found it   to be a rich and fertile subgenre worthy of a deep dive. For anyone curious as   to what   this genre entails, I found the Wikipedia description to be   surprisingly on point (slightly edited by me): Folk horror  is a subgenre of horror ... that   uses elements of folklore to invoke fear in its audience. Typical elements   include a rural setting and   themes of isolation, religion, the power of nature,   and the potential darkness of rural landscapes. Many derive their horror from   the actions and   beliefs of people rather than explicitly supernatural elements;   the primary focus of the stories is often upon naïve outsiders coming up   against   these forces. I found out about  Revelator   through some online research into modern folk horror where it was near the top   of many lists. I was unfamiliar with Daryl Gregory, but ...