Folklore’s Shadowy Trinity: Dissecting The Witch, The Wailing, and The Ritual

In the hush of forgotten woods and mist-shrouded villages, three films awaken primordial terrors, proving folklore’s grip on the human soul remains unbreakable.

Modern horror often turns to folklore not merely as backdrop, but as a primal force that exposes the fragility of civilisation against the uncanny. Robert Eggers’s The Witch (2015), Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing (2016), and David Bruckner’s The Ritual (2017) stand as towering achievements in this vein, each mining distinct cultural mythologies to craft experiences of slow-burning dread. By pitting these films against one another, we uncover shared threads of isolation, faith’s betrayal, and nature’s vengeful spirit, alongside the unique flavours each brings to the table.

  • Each film reinterprets folklore through cultural lenses, from Puritan witch trials to Korean shamanism and Norse paganism, revealing universal fears of the unknown.
  • Mastery of atmosphere unites them, employing soundscapes, cinematography, and rural isolation to erode sanity, yet their stylistic approaches diverge sharply.
  • Beyond scares, they probe deep psychological and societal wounds, cementing their status as modern folk horror benchmarks with enduring influence.

Whispers from the Wilderness: Origins of Folk Dread

Folk horror thrives on the collision between the mundane and the mythic, a subgenre revitalised in the 21st century after Mark Gatiss and others codified its hallmarks in the 1970s British wave. The Witch, The Wailing, and The Ritual exemplify this evolution, transplanting ancient beliefs into contemporary narratives while honouring their roots. Eggers draws from 17th-century New England Puritan journals and trial records, immersing viewers in a grey, austere world where the forest pulses with malevolence. The family’s expulsion from their plantation sets a tone of immediate vulnerability, the woods encroaching like a living entity.

In contrast, The Wailing roots itself in rural South Korea’s Goksong County, blending shamanistic rituals with Japanese colonial ghosts and Christian anxieties. A policeman investigates inexplicable murders amid a viral plague, his probe spiralling into encounters with a mysterious Japanese recluse and frenzied exorcisms. Na Hong-jin layers Christian, Buddhist, and animist elements, reflecting Korea’s syncretic spiritual history post-occupation. The film’s runtime, nearly three hours, allows folklore to unfurl gradually, mirroring the inexorable spread of village superstitions.

The Ritual ventures into Sweden’s remote forests, adapting Adam Nevill’s novel about four friends hiking to honour a lost companion. Their path leads to ancient runes, gutted animals, and visions of a towering, antlered monstrosity evoking Norse Jötnar or wendigos. Bruckner amplifies the novel’s pagan unease with disorienting handheld shots and a score that mimics wind through pines, transforming grief into something cosmically punitive. Collectively, these films reject jump scares for pervasive wrongness, where folklore manifests as psychological corrosion.

Unspooling the Nightmares: Narrative Tapestries Woven in Blood

Each storyline hinges on intrusion: outsiders or anomalies disrupting insular communities. In The Witch, the Puritan family’s isolation amplifies paranoia; the infant’s disappearance by a witch cackling in the woods ignites accusations within. Eggers scripts dialogue from historical texts, lending authenticity as sibling rivalries fester—Thomasin’s arc from dutiful daughter to empowered outcast symbolises repressed femininity clashing with patriarchal zeal. The goat Black Phillip becomes a Satanic conduit, his whispers seducing with promises of earthly delights amid famine.

The Wailing mirrors this through cop Jong-goo’s faltering faith; infected villagers convulse in agony, shamans chant futilely, and his daughter’s possession forces a desperate alliance with a pastor. Na structures the plot as a detective story devolving into apocalypse, with flashbacks revealing the stranger’s ritualistic murders tied to ancient curses. The narrative’s ambiguity—Japanese invader as demon or victim?—echoes Korea’s historical traumas, making folklore a metaphor for unresolved national guilt.

Bruckner’s The Ritual foregrounds male camaraderie fracturing under supernatural assault. Luke’s guilt over his friend’s death manifests in hallucinations of hanged effigies and a cult worshipping the creature. The film’s centrepiece trek builds through escalating omens: compasses failing, a gutted moose strung like a trophy, culminating in direct confrontations that blend creature feature with grief horror. Where The Witch internalises terror familial, and The Wailing communal, The Ritual personalises it through raw masculinity’s collapse.

Structurally, all employ non-linear hints—dreams, visions—to withhold resolutions, forcing audiences to question reality. This mirrors folklore’s oral tradition, where tales morph with retellings, ensuring dread lingers ambiguously.

Cultural Cauldrons: Folklore’s Distinct Brews

Puritan folklore in The Witch fixates on the Devil’s compact, drawn from Cotton Mather’s accounts and Essex County trials. Eggers consulted trial transcripts, depicting witches as goat-riding hags anointing with infants’ fat, true to colonial fears of Satan’s woodland court. The film critiques religious extremism, showing faith as both shield and snare, with the family’s prayers devolving into hysteria.

Korean mudang shamanism dominates The Wailing, where gut rituals invoke spirits via bells and knives. Na incorporates Jeju Island myths of mountain ghosts and Japanese yokai, post-colonial resentment fuelling the demon’s origin. Christianity’s introduction fractures traditions, paralleling 1980s Korean revivals amid democratisation. The film’s pantheon—ghosts possessing via touch, blood rites summoning deities—evokes Ringu‘s viral curses but grounds them in rural ethnology.

Norse mythology informs The Ritual, with the creature as a modern Jötunn, guardian of sacrificial woods. Nevill drew from Sámi folklore and Viking sagas, where trolls demand tribute. Bruckner visualises this through eitr-dripping antlers and runestones, linking to broader European pagan revivals. Unlike the others’ colonial lenses, it confronts secular Britain’s unease with pre-Christian wilds.

Yet convergences abound: all feature desecrated shrines, animal intermediaries, and familial curses, underscoring folklore’s archetypal power transcending borders.

Sensory Assaults: Crafting the Unseen Horror

Cinematography distinguishes their dread. Eggers’s wide-angle lenses distort the 1630s landscape, natural light piercing fog to silhouette abominations; Jarin Blaschke’s work evokes Terrence Malick’s lyricism twisted malign. Sound design by Christopher DeLaurenti isolates creaks and bleats, Black Phillip’s voice (Willem Dafoe) a velvet temptation.

Na employs handheld frenzy in The Wailing, Hongkyo Kim’s camera weaving through rain-lashed villages; red lanterns pulse like heartbeats, thunder underscoring chants. The score by Choi Sung-woo layers taiko drums with dissonant strings, mimicking possession’s frenzy.

Bruckner’s Steadicam prowls The Ritual‘s endless pines, Ben Lovett’s folk motifs warping into howls; practical sets of effigies and the creature suit by Odd Studios ground the uncanny. Each prioritises implication—the witch glimpsed fleeing, the stranger’s shadowed form, antlered silhouette—over revelation.

Performances that Pierce the Veil

Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin in The Witch evolves from innocence to feral agency, her wide eyes conveying terror then liberation. Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie anchor parental despair, their zealotry palpable. Kwak Do-won in The Wailing embodies everyman unraveling, Jun Kunimura’s enigmatic intruder chilling in restraint. Rafe Spall leads The Ritual‘s quartet, his breakdown raw; Ivan Rheon’s smugness heightens tensions.

Supporting turns amplify: Harvey Scrimshaw’s Caleb wrestles puberty’s demons, Hwang Jung-min’s shaman thrashes in trance, Arsher Ali’s vulnerability cracks machismo. These portrayals humanise folklore’s inhumanity.

Effects and Illusions: Conjuring the Mythic

Practical effects dominate, honouring folklore’s tactility. The Witch‘s prosthetics for the witch—rubbery flesh, broomstick flight via wires—feel authentically grotesque, eschewing CGI. The Wailing‘s possessions use contortionists and practical blood sprays, village pyres real flames. The Ritual‘s creature, a 10-foot animatronic by Chris Reynolds, blends man-in-suit with subtle VFX for scale, its eitr slime viscous horror.

Such choices immerse, making myths corporeal; post-production minimalism preserves rawness, influencing indies like Midsommar.

Thematic Vortices: Faith, Guilt, and the Wild’s Revenge

Isolation unites them, rural backdrops as characters punishing hubris. Faith falters: Puritans invoke Psalm 23 futilely, Jong-goo’s cross fails, hikers’ atheism crumbles. Guilt propels—familial sins, historical invasions, unspoken betrayals—folklore punishing the impure.

Gender dynamics simmer: empowered witches/shamans invert patriarchy. Nature rebels, woods reclaiming human folly, echoing ecofeminist readings. Collectively, they indict modernity’s disconnection from ancestral wisdom.

Influence ripples: Eggers inspired A24’s folk wave, Na elevated Korean genre exports, Bruckner bridged lit-to-screen. Remakes loom, but originals endure for unflinching ambiguity.

Director in the Spotlight

Robert Eggers, born 1983 in New Hampshire, grew up immersed in maritime folklore from his fishing family roots. A former production designer on films like Keepers of the Moon, he honed visual storytelling before directing shorts. His feature debut The Witch (2015) premiered at Sundance, earning acclaim for historical rigour; researched via Plymouth Colony archives, it grossed $40 million on $4 million budget. Eggers followed with The Lighthouse (2019), a black-and-white psychological duel starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, exploring cabin fever and myth. The Northman (2022), a Viking revenge saga with Alexander Skarsgård, drew from Hamlet sources and Icelandic sagas, blending brutality with shamanism. Influences include Dreyer, Bresson, and Powell; his meticulous period accuracy stems from linguist consultations. Upcoming Nosferatu (2024) reimagines the silent classic. Eggers’s oeuvre champions outsider visions against conformity, cementing him as folk horror’s auteur.

Actor in the Spotlight

Anya Taylor-Joy, born 1996 in Miami to a British-Argentinian family, raised in Argentina and London, discovered acting via ballet roots. Spotted at 16, she debuted in The Witch (2015), her Thomasin earning Gotham Award nod at 18. Breakthrough came with Split (2016) as captive Casey, then M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass (2019). Emma (2020) showcased comedic verve, earning BAFTA nomination; The Queen’s Gambit (2020) as chess prodigy Beth Harmon won Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, Critics’ Choice. The Menu (2022) satirised privilege, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) action-heroed her. Theatre includes Romeo and Juliet (2021). Influences: Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton; multilingual (English, Spanish), she champions diverse roles. Filmography spans Thoroughbreds (2017) psychological thriller, Last Night in Soho (2021) ghostly mystery, Amsterdam (2022) ensemble drama. Taylor-Joy’s piercing gaze and intensity define ethereal yet fierce personas.

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