I do love a good folk horror: strange locals who you can’t quite tell if they’re hostile or friendly, weird local beliefs based around obscure deities, arrogant protagonists who stroll right into these settings with confidence and entitlement, only to have their self-belief shattered. The thing is, while you see quite a lot of this genre in movies–from Wicker Man, to last year’s Men, by way of Ari Aster’s excellent Midsommar–mainstream games haven’t really broached this mysterious realm of horror (though our Josh had some kind words to say aboutSwiss folk horror Mundaun).
So, as is often the case, it’s up to indie creators to pick up the slack, and boy does last year’s The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow do that with gusto. The game is set in Victorian England, and casts you as Thomasina Bateman, an archeologist who receives a mysterious letter to excavate an ancient barrow in the ever so rural and ever so English village of Bewdley. Seriously, from the dour grey skies, to the drizzle, the provincial accents, the insular ‘we don’t want city folk round ‘ere’ attitudes of the locals, and the excessive consumption of ale in country pubs, this game is probably one of the most accurately English games I’ve played.
Like so much great folk horror, Hob’s Barrow’s descent into horror is slow and elegant, with a good two-thirds of the game being perfectly pleasant as you drink with the locals, explore the village and surrounding countryside, and only get little inklings here and there that maybe you shouldn’t be so eager to unearth the secrets of the titular barrow.
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Like many point-and-clicks, Hob’s Barrow is pretty quaint and relaxing for long periods of the game, as you amble through (brilliantly voiced) conversations with the locals and fairly doable puzzles. Slowly and increasingly however, that quaint atmosphere is interrupted by something ‘off’—a weird girl in rags playing a flute, goblins talking to you in your dreams, or later on a man tied to a post with his mouth stuffed with mysterious flowers (the horror of the moment is heightened by the game’s tendency to do jarring close-ups of characters’ faces, which have this deliberately ugly style that makes everyone look all irregular and warbly).
If you’re familiar with folk horror, then all the signs are there that this is all going in a dark direction. The cocky confidence of protagonist Thomasina plays a big part in this. Proud and independent, Thomasina fends off derisions and flirtations from the provincial manfolk (which you have dialogue choices to stamp out or play along with), but also brings a lot of lip-smacking rationalism to the village of Bewdley, often undermining the superstitions and customs of the wary locals. She’s constantly rebutting locals’ warnings with ‘logic’ and ‘science’, and at one point even cuts out a fossil from a local landmark so that she can leverage it when she trades with the local blacksmith. She’s rocking the boat, ruffling feathers in a way that is setting up some kind of retribution.
I wasn’t just namedropping Hereditary in there either. Without spoiling too much, there’s a whole theme about family trauma here, cross-generational curses, as well as deliciously creepy stuff around weird pagan deities thatreallycomes to a head in the game’s final third. Things ramp up so hard, in fact, that it almost jars with the fairly easygoing first two-thirds of the game, but if you’re a fan of folk horror, then you’ll get plenty of pleasure in seeing the little signs that shit’s gonna get very weird in this peaceful little English town with the dark secrets buried beneath it. I’d love for more games to venture into this strange little subsect of horror.
