In honor of the Study Break of the Unknown Tome fall student well-being event, staff from around the U-M Library gathered together their top recommendations within the folk and pastoral horror subgenres. Folk horror is a subgenre of horror typically featuring fear and superstition regarding folklore in a rural setting (think vampires, witches, a Beast of the woods). Similarly, pastoral horror showcases rural settings, though it follows its roots back to horror films set in the British countryside. Although these subgenres may be treated separately, with these recommendations we recognize how they often overlap and are in conversation with one another. Below you’ll find novels, graphic novels, photography, maps, manga, music, and films recommended by library connoisseurs, including many items which can be borrowed or streamed through our library. We hope you can find something festive to celebrate the season and come back to borrow more from our collection!
Games
Pathologic artwork. Image courtesy of Cliqist.
A sudden outbreak of an unknown and inevitably lethal disease has decimated the citizens. Prayers did not help. Science did not help. So, finally, they have turned to outsiders for help: three of them enter the town in hope of finding a cure or—failing that—an explanation.
Pathologic 2 / [Developed by] Ice-Pick Lodge.
The town is dying. Face the realities of a collapsing society as you make difficult choices in seemingly lose-lose situations. The plague isn’t just a disease. You can’t save everyone.
Night in the Woods : Weird Autumn Edition.
College dropout Mae Borowski returns home to the crumbling former mining town of Possum Springs seeking to resume her aimless former life and reconnect with the friends she left behind. But things aren't the same. Home seems different now and her friends have grown and changed. Leaves are falling and the wind is growing colder. Strange things are happening as the light fades. And there's something in the woods.
Little Misfortune : fancy edition / [Developed by] Killmonday Games.
Year Walk character study. Image courtesy of Simogo.
Little Misfortune is an interactive story, focused on exploration and characters, both sweet and dark, where your choices have consequences. Starring Misfortune Ramirez Hernandez, an imaginative 8-year-old, who seeks the prize of Eternal Happiness, as a gift to her Mommy. Led by her new friend, Mr. Voice, they venture into the woods, where mysteries are unraveled and a little bit of bad luck unfolds.
Venture out into the dark woods where strange creatures roam, on a vision quest set in 19th century Sweden. Solve and decipher cryptic puzzles, listen for clues, and learn about mysterious folklore creatures in the built-in encyclopedia as you seek to foresee your future and find out if your loved one will ever love you back.
When the wife of the best-selling writer Alan Wake disappears on their vacation, his search turns up pages from a thriller he doesn’t even remember writing. A Dark Presence stalks the small town of Bright Falls, pushing Wake to the brink of sanity in his fight to unravel the mystery and save his love.
Maid of Sker / developed by Wales Interactive Ltd.
Maid of Sker is a first-person survival horror, set in a remote hotel with a gory and macabre history from Welsh folklore. Brave the nightmares of the Quiet Ones. Do not panic…don’t even breathe!
Set in the Viking age, a broken Celtic warrior embarks on a haunting vision quest into Viking Hell to fight for the soul of her dead lover.
Fatal frame II : Crimson Butterfly Remake.
Twin sisters Mio and Mayu wander into an abandoned village haunted by vengeful spirits. It is a village where night never ends, crawling with ghosts searching for the twins who once fled their ritual. Mio tries to find Mayu and escape, but in doing so, she unwittingly retraces the tragic events of the past.
Artwork from Silent Hill f. Image courtesy of NPR.
In 1960s Japan, Shimizu Hinako's secluded town of Ebisugaoka is consumed by a sudden fog, transforming her home into a haunting nightmare. As the town falls silent and the fog thickens, Hinako must navigate the twisted paths of Ebisugaoka, solving complex puzzles and confronting grotesque monsters to survive.
Play as Alex, a bright, rebellious teenager who brings her new stepbrother Jonas to an overnight party on an old military island. The night takes a terrifying turn when you unwittingly open a ghostly gate spawned from the island’s cryptic past. How you deal with these events, your peers, and the ominous creatures you’ve unleashed is up to you.
Under the Autumn Strangely / Graham Gentz
Inspired by "Over the Garden Wall" created by Patrick McHale, players collaboratively create a world uncanny and old. Codify and encourage tonal clash as the Three Roles meld whimsy, autumnal melancholy, and dread.
Movies and Series
Artwork from Over the Garden Wall. Image courtesy of WikiFandom.
Two brothers, Wirt and Greg, find themselves lost in the Unknown; a strange forest adrift in time. With the help of a wise old Woodsman and a foul-tempered bluebird named Beatrice, Wirt and Greg must travel across this strange land, in hope of finding their way home.
Police sergeant Neil Howie is called to an island village in search of a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed. The investigation is further complicated as Howie’s religious views clash with those of the island’s residents.
A young girl's arrival at a convent after the death of her parents marks the beginning of a series of events that unleash an evil presence on the girl and her mysterious new friend, an enigmatic figure known as Alucarda. Demonic possession, Satan worship, and vampirism follows.
Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists at a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.
In 1630, a farmer relocates his family to a remote plot of land on the edge of a forest where strange, unsettling things happen. With suspicion and paranoia mounting, each family member's faith, loyalty and love are tested in shocking ways.
Scene from 2018 series remake of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Image courtesy of i Newspaper
In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.
In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, but when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the cast find themselves fighting for their lives.
Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions collide.
An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain, King Arthur's reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men.
Artwork from Dreams by Akira Kurosawa. Image courtesy of IMDB.
Eight visually rich vignettes drawn from Kurosawa’s own dreams—fox weddings and vanished orchards, a soldier’s ghosts, a walk through Van Gogh’s canvases, nuclear nightmares, and a water-mill utopia—meditate on childhood, art, mortality, and humanity’s uneasy bond with nature.
Kwaidan 怪談
A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.
Adventure awaits 12 year old Brendan who must fight Vikings and a serpent god to find a crystal and complete the legendary Book of Kells. In order to finish Brother Aiden's book, Brendan must overcome his deepest fears on a secret quest that will take him beyond the abbey walls and into the enchanted forest where dangerous mythical creatures hide.
Two young English women go on a cycling tour of the French countryside. When one of them goes missing, the other begins to search for her. But who can she trust?
Les Raisins de la Mort = The Grapes of Death
A young woman discovers that wine made from contaminated grapes is turning people into decomposing zombies.
Desert scene from The Velvet Vampire. Image courtesy of Token Homo.
Lee and his wife Susan accept the invitation of mysterious Diane to visit her secluded desert estate. Tensions arise when the couple, unaware that Diane is a vampire, realize that they are both objects of the pale temptress's seductions.
A Quiet Place in the Country / an Alberto Grimaldi production
A neurotic artist seeking creative renewal in a decaying rural villa plunges into madness when he becomes obsessed with the ghost of a countess who died there decades prior.
Two girls on the run get lost in the French countryside, and wind up in a haunted chateau occupied by an ailing vampire and his servants.
Scene from Sinners. Image courtesy of NPR.
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
A young couple out for a walk decide to take a stroll through a large cemetery. As darkness begins to fall they realize they can't find their way out, and soon their fears begin to overtake them.
A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.
Scene from Dybbuk. Image courtesy of Forward.
The mystical love story between Chonen, a poor Talmud student, and Lea, a girl from a wealthy family, depicts the traditional folk culture of Polish Jews before WW2.
Nora, Andreas and Captain Kris leap back into action when a dangerous new troll awakes - and this time they'll need more help to take it down.
Amid the Civil War in 17th-century England, a group of deserters flee from battle through an overgrown field. Captured by an alchemist, the men are forced to help him search to find a hidden treasure that he believes is buried in the field.
Follows a pair of carnivorous mermaid sisters drawn ashore to explore life on land in an alternate 1980s Poland. Their tantalizing siren songs and otherworldly auras make them overnight sensations as nightclub singers in the half-glam, half-decrepit world of Smoczynska's imagining.
In an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, a young girl is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit.
An aging paranoid war criminal, protected by his faithful wife, faces death while being haunted by the ghosts of his past.
Feng shui master Kim Sang-deok joins a shaman and a mortician to relocate a cursed ancestral grave, but the excavation unearths a colonial atrocity buried beneath the soil, forcing crew into a brutal confrontation with an immortal warrior.
Through a failed medical experiment, a priest is stricken with vampirism and is forced to abandon his ascetic ways.
Soon after a stranger arrives in a little village, a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman, drawn into the incident, is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter
In early-18th-century England, the children of a village slowly become a coven of devil-worshippers.
During the English Civil War, a young Roundhead seeks vengeance against a vicious witch-hunter and his henchman, who have terrorized the soldier's fiancée and wrongfully executed her uncle.
Valerie a Týden Divů = Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Scene from Valerie a Týden Divů. Image courtesy of labiennale.org
Valerie, a Czechoslovakian teenager living with her grandmother, is blossoming into womanhood, but that transformation proves secondary to the effects she experiences when she puts on a pair of magic earrings. Now seeing the world around her in a different light, Valerie must endure her sexual awakening while attempting to discern reality from fantasy as she encounters lecherous priest Gracian, a vampire-like stranger and otherworldly carnival folk.
All the Haunts Be Ours : a Compendium of Folk Horror
The most expansive folk horror collection ever assembled opens with Kier-La Janisse’s award-winning documentary Woodlands Dark & Days Bewitched, hailed as the definitive exploration of the genre. From there, the journey spans 19 essential works of folk horror – from celebrated landmarks to obscure rarities and once-lost films.
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
Explores the folk horror phenomenon and its culturally specific manifestations in international horror, from its first wave in the 1970s to today.
The Dark Secret of Harvest Home
Unhappy advertising company employee Nicholas Constantine, his wife Beth, and their daughter Kate move to the quiet New England village of Cornwall Combe, and soon become deeply involved in the town's mysterious rituals.