Two kinds of horror, two very different ways to make you regret taking that wrong turn.
You hear a noise in the woods.
You investigate.
Congratulations. You have made the first mistake.
But what happens next depends on what kind of horror story you've wandered into.
If the trees seem to be hiding an ancient ritual, the locals are acting suspiciously friendly, and somebody keeps mentioning the harvest, congratulations: you may have stumbled into folk horror.
If you've instead discovered a crumbling mansion, a locked room, a mysterious family curse, and a woman wandering around in a nightgown despite the temperature being approximately "absolutely freezing," you're probably dealing with Gothic horror.
Both genres love darkness, isolation, secrets, superstition and things that absolutely should not be disturbed.
But they aren't the same thing.
So let's head into the woods, climb the stairs of that suspicious old mansion, and figure out exactly what separates folk horror from Gothic horror.
