FOLK HORROR AND NEW FOLK HORROR: A CONVERSATION WITH ARI ASTER (Lisbon)

Presented at the Motel X International Horror Film Festival, Lisbon, which runs Sept 10-15, 2019

The occult fields and forests of Folk Horror, which in the 1970s and 80s birthed “The Wicker Man”, “Witchfinder General”, “Blood on Satan’s Claw”, “The Company of Wolves”, and others, have been revisited with increasing frequency in recent years. Filmmakers such as Ben Wheatley (“Kill List”, “A Field in England”), Robert Eggers (“The Witch”, “The Lighthouse”), Jordan Peele (“Get Out”, “Us”) and Ari Aster (“Hereditary”, “Midsommar”) have led a resurgence of New Folk Horror over the last decade.

In this masterclass, Ari Aster and writer Howard David Ingham (“We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror”) will discuss exactly what is so inspiring about the genre, why the time is right for it to find a new audience, and what the New Folk Horror brings to the field.  Founded by film writer/programmer Kier-La Janisse in 2010, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies offers classes in horror history, theory and production, with branches in London, New York and Los Angeles, as well as presenting special events worldwide. Howard, representing Miskatonic at this event, has instructed at Miskatonic London on the subject of folk horror.