RETURN OF THE WICKER MAN

Half a century after the folk horror classic terrified cinemagoers, the genre is once again casting its eerie spell. DAVID BARNETT, whose new novel depicts a community in thrall to a pagan god, examines our fascination with the darker side of nature

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IT WAS the eerie, unsettling movie that helped usher in a genre now known as folk horror. When The Wicker Man starring Christopher Lee, Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland and Ingrid Pitt was released half a century ago in 1973, cinema audiences were shocked by its slow-burn psychological terror.

Woodward plays Sgt Neil Howie, a deeply Christian policeman who arrives on the remote Scottish island of Summerisle after receiving a report of a missing girl. What he finds is something even more sinister than he could have ever anticipated.

The Wicker Man is often cited as part of the "unholy trinity" of folk horror movies, also including Witchfinder General (1968), starring Vincent Price hunting down black magic practitioners during the English Civil War, and 1971's The Blood On Satan's Claw, in which a skull unearthed in a farmer's field sets in chain a series of horrific events - and for which the very term "folk horror" was coined by film reviewer Rod Cooper.

Now, folk horror is having a resurgence, sweeping across literature, film and TV. It delves beneath the surface of the traditional rural idyll to uncover the old ways we used to follow... and the often terrifying stories behind British folklore.

Folk horror generally doesn't feature mad masked slashers with foot-long knives, fleshhungry zombies roaming an apocalyptic wasteland, or even chain-rattling ghosts in haunted houses. Instead, you're more likely to get your chills from isolated rural communities, strange pagan practices and ancient evil lurking in the woods. And it's not just a flash-in-the-pan entertainment trend; folk horror's growing popularity mirrors an increasing interest in folklore, pagan ways and belief in the supernatural.