'Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched' Review: A Diverting Survey of Folk-Horror Cinema and TV
'Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched' Review: A Diverting Survey of Folk-Horror Cinema and TV
Kier-La Janisse's documentary provides an alluring international overview of macabre genre films drawn from folklore and superstition.
Dennis Harvey, provided by
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Director: Kier-La Janisse
With: Piers Haggard, Lawrence Gordon Clark, Alice Lowe, Robert Eggers, Jonathan Rigby, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Mitch Horowitz, Maisha Wester, Mattie Do, Mariano Baino, Robin Hardy. (English, Portuguese dialogue)
Running time: Running time: 194 MIN.
Courtesy of SXSW
“Folk horror” is a term of relatively recent vintage — or at least popularity — that only grows more broad as “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched” spends three and a quarter hours trying to define it. Still, a slippery thesis doesn’t detract from the pleasures of this documentary from genre scholar and programmer Kier-La Janisse. She draws on alluring clips from more than 100 films, plus myriad interviews, to survey an alternately lurid and surreal cinematic (as well as television) field of mostly rural tales inspired by traditional superstitions and lore.