Welcome to MovieJawn’s Split Decision! Each week, Ryan will pose a question to our staff of knowledgeable and passionate film lovers and share the responses. Chime in on Twitter, Facebook, our Instagram, or in the comments below.

This week’s question: 

What is a film in the folk horror subgenre you would recommend?

I really love Lair of the White Worm, which is just a bonkers Ken Russell film from 1988. I went to see it at its opening night in London in a packed theater with my best friend, Dan. It starts off goofy (in ways that need to be seen to be believed). I remember leaning over to Dan and saying, “This is awful!” And then moments later, as it just got campier, I added, “I get it! It’s deliberate!” The film is fabulously cheesy, and it especially comes to life whenever Amanda Donohoe’s Lady Sylvia Marsh bares her fangs. By the end of the screening, the audience burst into tremendous applause. –Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

This is a tough one because the big, famous genre-defining folk horror movies are probably the best ones/the ones I like most. They’re just undeniable. So I will not deny The Devil Rides Out, a movie I found via a thrash cover of its main theme. That pretty much defines Devil for me. It’s got one of Christopher Lee’s best Hammer performances and it’s interesting, even to an easily-bored fella like me. Occult themes in horror interest me, but they’re almost always used in service of stories that are a little too spare. So many writers lean on the idea of horror more than actual horror, and the best of them can pull it off, but the worst of them say “there may be something under this house!” and then stretch it out so long you don’t care when the story finally admits “it’s a big monster and you can’t see it and it won’t do anything.” The Devil does stuff in The Devil Rides Out!” A lot of stuff happens! Lee doesn’t even play Satan! What restraint! — Alex Rudolph, Staff Writer

I’ll be honest- I freakin’ love the bad Nicolas Cage remake of The Wicker Man. The whole idea was so ill advised in the first place that I can’t believe they did it. But I am so glad they did because it almost feels like a Cage-fueled parody of the folk horror genre. Watch him punch multiple women in the face, steal a bicycle at gunpoint, have dreams within dreams, and of course, have a real time with some bees. It is such a fun movie to watch. –A. Freedman, Staff Writer

The Ritual (2017) scared the pants off me. Folk horror might be my favorite type of horror, yet we have a love/hate relationship because it scares me the most. I have never enjoyed feeling scared -- thanks, childhood trauma! -- but recently I started watching horror movies as a way of doing exposure therapy on myself. In most movies, the unknown tends to be scarier than the monster that is eventually revealed. This is not the case in The Ritual, a British film about a group of male friends who embark on a hiking trip in Sweden, then make the unfortunate decision to take a shortcut through the forest. The Ritual combines a frame narrative concerning tragedy, guilt, and shame with Norse mythology, disembowling, sacrifice, and a creature that literally haunts dreams for a powerful punch of folk horror. –Melissa Strong, Contributor

I’m going to resist the urge to herald Midsommar for its recent revival of this horror subgenre, only because I just did that with one of my last articles. Instead, let’s go with Children of the Corn! If there’s one thing you need to know before befriending me, it’s that I love a horror movie franchise, and possessed farm children are no exception to this rule. My friend Zane and I spent a few weekends back in Summer 2017 binging them together and, if I’m being honest, they kind of all blend together. My entire recollection of that series is just a haze of pitchforks, fields, fire, and children’s size Amish hats. However, one thing I do remember is that the first one has my favorite quick exit of any movie ever. Go watch Malachai torment some city folk and see what I mean! –Matt Crump, Staff Writer

I’ve become more and more fascinated by folk horror ever since watching Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror during this year’s SXSW festival, which added a ton of movies to my watchlist. So I will briefly mention 4 films, comprising two different double features that both use folk horror to explore colonialism.

The first two are both from Australian director Peter Weir: The Picnic and Hanging Rock (1975) and The Last Wave (1977). Both put forth Australia as an apocalyptic nation. A new home settled ‘after history’ but one that is also a post-apocalypse for its Aboriginal population as well. Both of these films are from the perspective of white characters, but the dangers they face as settlers are ancient, or maybe more accurately, timeless.

The second double feature I would recommend is centered around voodoo traditions. The first is I Walked With a Zombie, Jacques Tourneur’s 1943 film. It surprised me with its critiques of colonialism embedded in the plot and the amount of actual voodoo traditions shown in the film with what feels like little sensationalism. I got a similar feeling from Wes Craven’s 1988 film, The Serpent and the Rainbow, which also echoes a lot of the themes in The Last Wave (the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow wanted Weir to direct the adaptation also). While again, these films are told from a white point of view, the horror within is not some exotic stereotyping. None of them stand in for these voices making it to the screen, but they feel well-intentioned. –Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor