Starve Acre’s Folklore Horror

Folklore ties human emotions and experiences with environment and nature. This shapes a sense of identity and connection to those around us but more strikingly, to the generations before. Usually, this is a wholesome element of humanity that brings belonging and culture to our lives. For example, the saying ‘knock on wood’ is from the Pagan tale that speaks of good spirits living in the wood of English trees and to knock is to ask for good luck and prosperity. However, the film Starve Acre, adapted from the book by Andrew Michael Hurley of the same name, explores the relationship between ancient tales and human identity through a folk-horror lens.

All Images from Starve Acre, BBC Film

Folklore generally seems to serve one of two emotional functions in cultural history across different civilisations: hope as a comfort and fear a as warning. Think: ‘red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning’ used to predict the weather. It is not exactly mythical but certainly a folk-proverb that plays on hope and fear, and many people still use it today.

Jack Grey – or Dandelion Jack – is a mythical demonic entity created by Hurley, based upon the English, Pagan, and Celtic folklore of both fertility and the devil. Cast out by village folk of the past, Jack is contained below an oak tree that stands on the land known as Starve Acre. He used to require a man, a woman, and a child sacrifice to secure the village a fruitful harvest for winter. He is thus said to bring peace and rebirth to the land by saving its people from wintery deaths at the cost of their loved ones.

In the film we meet the main character, Richard, in 1970s Yorkshire. His history is already entwined with the stories of his home Starve Acre as his father was abusive in pursuit of Dandelion Jack. Richard learns in the film that when his father forced him to nakedly stand outside in the cold, it was because he was trying to bring back the demon by sacrificing his son. A traumatised adult Richard goes back to live in Starve Acre, determined to give his son the childhood he wishes he had there. Despite the painful memories Richard has of the environment he still has a deep appreciation for its beauty. He tells his son, Owen, not to believe the tales of Dandelion Jack and that it is ‘[the beauty of the land that is real. The stories are just how people tried to explain things before we knew better]’. The film affirms it is not the space Richard is resentful of but the tales that haunt them; the folklore his father was morbidly obsessed with that terrified him as a child. He wants Owen to enjoy the landscape and not live in terror as he did.

Try as he might to denounce these demonic stories, when Dandelion Jack kills and claims Owen, Richard’s grief leaves him vulnerable to Jack’s manipulations. Especially because the grief experienced by both Richard and Jules, his wife, isolates them from each other. Paranoid, Richard frantically digs up the cut trunk of the oak tree on Starve Acre looking for answers, the tree that is supposed to be the doorway to Jack. In doing so he allows Jack to take the form of a hare buried by the tree. Jack becomes more powerful and sets out to claim a man and a woman to complete his sacrifices.

Jules attaches herself to the hare like a mother, bathing him and giving him their son’s old room. Dandelion Jack takes control of her guilt-ridden grief and Jules murders a man. Only a female sacrifice is left. It is unclear if Richard is fully possessed by Jack like Jules is at this point or if he is protecting his wife from becoming the sacrifice, or both. Richard kills Jules’ sister as sacrifice instead. Despite emotionally abandoning her in his suffering, this twistedly proves Richard’s love and need for Jules. The couple are reconnected and the hare they care for fills the son-shaped-hole in their lives, but of course, they are in a deluded state. Jack has manipulated them into worshipping him.

What keeps the film a psychological horror is you cannot pinpoint where Richard or Jules begin to fall into the mystic grasp of Dandelion Jack at Starve Acre. Was Jules under his influence when Owen collapsed and she didn’t run to him straight away – like the fully converted Jules claims? Or, was it the moment she formed an attachment to the hare in her lonely mourning? Was Richard under the influence of Jack when he dug up the tree? When he didn’t tell anyone that the hare was dead and came to life? Or was it only the moments both Richard and Jules decided to kill? It is very much up for interpretation.

What is clear, is whilst the supernatural of Dandelion Jack is frightening, it provides Richard and Jules with the comfort of the family they so desperately crave to regain. The folklore is used as commentary on grief, its desperation, and how it is an age-old human pattern. The village folk were terrified of dying from starvation so sacrificed loved ones to Jack in the hopes of having a fertile harvest to survive. Richard and Jules sacrifice a friend and a sister for hope and life too. Sometimes the causes and effects of folklore, of belief: fear and hope, can become one in the name of survival.

Folklore is a historic symptom of the human need for identity and belonging. However, the film Starve Acre reminds us that human identity and our pursuit of it - like Richard’s conflicting relationship with Starve Acre - has always had a dark side, thus the stories we construct out of it do too.