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Citation

Jones T (2023) The Devil His Due: Folk Horror, Occulture and the Black Magic Story. In: Keetley D & Heholt R (eds.) Folk Horror: New Global Pathways. Horror Studies. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 113-126. https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/folk-horror/

Abstract
First paragraph: FOLK HORROR OFFERS a new way of looking backwards. It is a twenty-first-century strategy of reading and viewing which has assembled a canon of texts from the pop culture archive and engaged with them afresh, rather than a genre category which was meaningfully conceived at the time most of those texts were produced. Folk horror was constituted as a popular genre category in the last decade or so, even though its canon of texts is mainly drawn from past decades and it diegetically recalls much earlier times. As with all generic titles, the label ‘folk horror’ creates interpretive pressure as well as offering critical coherency around texts placed within the category. Folk horror positions texts in conversation with an existing canon of works as well as a more general aesthetic. To read a text as folk horror is to agree that it in some way qualifies as folk horror, which in turn encourages us to emphasise the ways in which it qualifies. To speak of folk horror is itself an interpretive act