Maybe it’s a counter-reaction to our increasingly digital reality, but lately horror films have increasingly turned to primal pasts to resurrect the rituals and fears of folktale.
It’s a strikingly global trend, spanning puritan New England (“The Witch”), rural Iceland (“Lamb”), North Dublin (“You Are Not My Mother”) and pagan cults of Sweden (“Midsommar”). The best of these movies don’t just dredge up a supernatural force from another time but adapt the spirit and psychology that it emerged out of.
