FolknHell

About FolknHell

FolknHell is the camp-fire you shouldn’t have wandered up to: a loud, spoiler-packed podcast where three unapologetic cine-goblins – host Andy Davidson and his horror-hungry pals David Hall & Dave Houghton, decide two things about every movie they watch: 1, is it folk-horror, and 2, is it worth your precious, blood-pumping time. Armed with nothing but “three mates, a microphone, and an unholy amount of spoilers” Intro-transcript the trio torch-walk through obscure European oddities, cult favourites and fresh nightmares you’ve never heard of, unpacking the myths, the monsters and the madness along the way. Their rule-of-three definition keeps every discussion razor-sharp: the threat must menace an isolated community, sprout from the land itself, and echo older, folkloric times. Each episode opens with a brisk plot rundown and spoiler warning, then erupts into forensic myth-picking, sound-design geekery and good-natured bickering before the lads slap down a score out of 30 (“the adding up is the hard part!") FolknHell is equal parts academic curiosity and pub-table cackling; you’ll learn about pan-European harvest demons and still snort ale through your nose. Dodging the obvious, and spotlighting films that beg for cult-classic status. Each conversation is an easy listen where no hot-take is safe from ridicule, and folklore jargon translated into plain English; no gate-keeping, just lots of laughs! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Andrew Davidson, Dave Houghton, David Hall

Category

tv & film

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

8 Jul 2025

Latest episode

1 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

33 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   1 Oct 2026

   The Borderlands

   FolknHell heads to a remote Devon church for Elliot Goldner’s found-footage horror The Borderlands, also known as Final Prayer. There are Vatican sceptics, far too many explanations about cameras, an older belief system under the floorboards, and an ending that finally remembers how horrible all of this ought to be. Full Episode Description Elliot Goldner’s The Borderlands (2013), released in some territories as Final Prayer, sends a Vatican investigation team to a remote West Country church after reports of a possible miracle. Their job is to test, record and ideally debunk what is happening. The film takes this recording part very seriously. Possibly more seriously than anyone needed. Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall pick through the headcams, static cameras, strange noises, sceptical clergy and the older religious site sitting underneath the Christian one. The discussion gets into the film’s biggest strength and biggest problem: there is a good folk horror idea buried here, but the found-footage machinery keeps getting in its way. There is plenty to like. Gordon Kennedy’s Deacon gets particular praise, several scares land properly, and the final descent beneath the church is claustrophobic, grotesque and difficult to forget. But the local belief system is thinly felt, the villagers barely register, and the supposed outsiders often seem to be outsiders to almost nobody. Spoilers throughout, including discussion of the ending. FolknHell Verdict Yes, The Borderlands counts as folk horror for FolknHell, but not an especially strong example of it. Place is doing most of the work. Belief is present but underdeveloped, while the outsider element is weakened by the fact that the investigators are practically the only people the film lets us spend time with. As a horror film it works better. The journey is creepy, sometimes properly frightening, and worth taking. Start pulling at the logic, though, and quite a lot comes loose. Score Total: 15/30 Links to more YouTube episode: [ADD URL] FolknHell Film Page: [ADD URL] FolknHell Transcript Page: [ADD URL] FolknHell Editorial Article: [ADD URL] IMDb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2781832/) TMDb ( https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/207774-the-borderlands) Rotten Tomatoes (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_borderlands) Wikipedia Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30. Add your own score and comments about the films at https://www.folknhell.com/scores (https://www.folknhell.com/scores ) Find us on the socials: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6R1z2tHvPlreKCkoCuFECQ): @folknhell Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/folknhell/): FolknHell X (https://x.com/FolknHell): @FolknHell Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/folknhell.bsky.social): FolknHell See acast.com/privacy for info. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   17 Sept 2026

   Loner

   Charlie Robb’s Loner (2025) drops a lonely, deeply unreliable vlogger into the Northumbrian woods and lets social-media fakery collide with something that may be older, hungrier and considerably less interested in Wi-Fi. FolknHell asks whether this is folk horror, horror-comedy, or folk horror about folk horror. Full Episode Description This week FolknHell heads into the Northumbrian woods with Loner (2025), Charlie Robb’s found-footage horror built around Angus, an aspiring influencer whose wilderness retreat very quickly exposes the gap between the man he performs online and the man actually standing in the trees. There is plenty to enjoy before the horror properly gets its boots muddy: fake fishing, emergency coffee supplies, hopeless survival skills and an influencer persona held together with optimism, denial and supermarket provisions. Then the woods start taking things from him. A terrified woman appears. Strange white stones, bones, a folklore book and a barely glimpsed presence push the film towards something much stranger. The argument becomes the episode. Is Angus encountering a genuine forest deity that demands sacrifice? Is he using folklore to construct an excuse for what he has done? Or does the film deliberately leave both possibilities breathing down each other’s necks? That ambiguity carries straight into the folk horror question. The place works. The outsider works. The belief system is much shakier. By the end, the phrase that sticks is "meta folk horror". Not straightforward folk horror so much as a film using folk horror itself as part of its story about storytelling, isolation and self-invention. FolknHell Verdict Loner is not comfortably traditional folk horror, but it is absolutely worth a folk horror conversation. Its Northumbrian landscape, outsider structure and folklore machinery pull strongly in that direction, while its unreliable narrator keeps threatening to reveal the whole thing as fabrication. Charlie Robb’s performance does much of the heavy lifting, and the film gets more interesting the longer the argument goes on. Scores Andy Davidson: 8/10 Dave Houghton: 6/10 David Hall: 6.5/10 Links To Add YouTube episode: [Add link] FolknHell Film Page: [Add link] FolknHell Transcript Page: [Add link] TMDb: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1489999-loner/reviews?language=en-GB (https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1489999-loner/reviews?language=en-GB) Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/loner_2025 (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/loner_2025) IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33298831/ (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33298831/) Content Warning Spoilers throughout, including discussion of death, blood, cannibalism, mental health, self-delusion and graphic meat imagery. Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30. Add your own score and comments about the films at https://www.folknhell.com/scores (https://www.folknhell.com/scores ) Find us on the socials: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6R1z2tHvPlreKCkoCuFECQ): @folknhell Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/folknhell/): FolknHell X (https://x.com/FolknHell): @FolknHell Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/folknhell.bsky.social): FolknHell See acast.com/privacy for info. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   3 Sept 2026

   Rose Of Nevada

   Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada gives FolknHell a lost fishing boat, a thirty-year time slip, suspiciously dead fish and a surprisingly strong case for Cornish folk horror. Andy, David and Dave agree on the film. The timeline is another matter entirely. Spoilers throughout. Watch the film first unless you fancy sailing directly into the temporal fog. Full Episode Description Episode 30 takes Andy Davidson, David Hall and Dave Houghton back to Cornwall for Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada (2026), a film in which a missing fishing boat returns after thirty years and immediately makes time everybody’s problem. With the speakers now properly attributed, the argument becomes even better. Andy brings his own Cornish background to the film’s portrait of fishing communities, second homes and local decline. Dave digs into the 16mm photography, square frames, static land and seasick movement at sea. David becomes increasingly convinced that tiny physical details, circular falls and a pile of very dead fish are telling us more than they first appear to be. Then comes the folk horror question. FolknHell’s current test is place, belief and the stranger. Rose of Nevada has all three, although Dave quite reasonably asks whether existential dread really makes it horror. Andy’s answer: absolutely. We also get Mogi as the Ancient Mariner, a pub that suddenly comes back to life, one magnificent hole in a roof, Mark Jenkin’s silent 27-second filming method and a continuity error involving a door that is promptly reclassified as a time slip. FolknHell Verdict Folk horror. Not pagan sacrifice or occult ritual, but a distinct Cornish place, a community sustained by belief and loss, outsiders entering an inherited world, and existential horror generated by time, identity and the return of a past that should have stayed past. Scores Dave Houghton: 9/10 Andy Davidson: 10/10 David Hall: 10/10 Total: 29/30 Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30. Add your own score and comments about the films at https://www.folknhell.com/scores (https://www.folknhell.com/scores ) Find us on the socials: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6R1z2tHvPlreKCkoCuFECQ): @folknhell Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/folknhell/): FolknHell X (https://x.com/FolknHell): @FolknHell Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/folknhell.bsky.social): FolknHell See acast.com/privacy for info. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 14 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

27

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0

Contact FolknHell

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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