If you’ve seen The Wicker Man and/or Hot Fuzz, you may recognize and appreciate the tone of these folk horror underpinnings.

Lydia Wilson in a scene from “Requiem.”

By Peg Aloi

Horror is enormously popular in film and television these days, and so sub-genres within the thriller and horror genres are also enjoying plenty of attention. Why is this happening, and will it last? Hard to answer, but I’ll try. In the 1960s and ’70s, iconic (e.g., George Romero, Wes Craven, Roman Polanski) and experimental (e.g., Sara Driver, Bill Gunn) filmmakers began to shatter notions of what a horror film could be. As norms were breached, we started to see an increased audience for these genre-stretching films. Magazines like Cinefantastique and Fangoria (and the Boston-produced Video Eyeball) chronicled the growing trend, and the horror fan base grew.

In the ’90s, digital video made the genre more accessible to lower budget artists (hello, The Blair Witch Project and a whole new genre: “found footage”), encouraging increased diversity of storytelling. The internet facilitated networking and fan obsession: numerous film festivals and websites are dedicated to horror films. The result? Over the past two decades the genre has inspired some amazing work but, at the moment, it seems overpopulated. So much new material is coming out that it’s increasingly unlikely quality will remain consistently high.

Anyway, don’t get me started on how much crappy horror there is out there! The bigger problem is that there is so much middling or almost great horror out there. The increased growth of new series streaming on TV that feature cinematic production design and ambitious long form narratives means plenty of horror offerings, but very few of them are truly outstanding. However, some of them feature very good writing, or direction, or cinematography, or acting, or some combination thereof. The usual weak link is the writing. American Horror Story is an example of a series that has flashes of brilliance and excellent production values, but is undercut by uneven writing, which usually comes in the form of intriguing plot points that ultimately fizzle out or go nowhere. Very few new horror series are uniformly excellent (Black Mirror, maybe) but I keep hoping this will change and audiences will demand higher quality.

I was pretty excited by Netflix’s new series Requiem at first. This new UK series, well-directed by BAFTA winner Mahalia Belo, is glossy, beautiful, and rather suspenseful. It exudes a distinctive folk horror vibe, something that’s a sure win these days. The cast is very fine. But the story, co-written by showrunner Kris Mrksa and Blake Ayshford (both with numerous TV writing credits), disappoints because powerful possibilities are left unexplored. The series also seems unclear on whether its horror is rooted in the psychological (grounded in what people believe: in this case, occult magic), or in the supernatural, where things simply happen and seeing is believing. Yes, horror is a multi-faceted and forgiving genre. But its explosive popularity in recent years has led to a trend towards confused, weak, and unfulfilling narratives. (One example that comes to mind is the massively-hyped but hugely disappointing The Void.)

With Requiem, we know right off we’re in for some good old-fashioned British horror. An elderly man walks alone on the grounds of his grand country mansion in rural Wales, then climbs out a window onto a roof ledge and, hearing some eerie sounds, leaps to his death. Next we see a glamorous young English cellist named Matilda Gray (Lydia Wilson) preparing for a major concert in London with her accompanist Hal (Joel Fry, seen in Game of Thrones). Matilda’s been offered a year-long gig in New York and isn’t sure how to tell her clingy mum Janice (veteran actress Joanna Scanlan). A nice guy who spent the night and is making breakfast in her apartment gets the brush off from Matilda, who seems to need her space. Just before the London concert, Janice is shown hearing the same kinds of eerie noises the elderly man did before he committed suicide. Janice comes to the theatre just in time to see Matilda sneaking a cigarette outside and, in view of her daughter, kills herself in a brutal way.

This tantalizing beginning kicks off a strangely contrived yet fascinating story of Matilda’s mysterious past. Matilda puts her career on hold to grieve and unravel her mother’s death. She discovers Janice was obsessed with a young girl named Carys Howell, who went missing in Wales over twenty years ago. Matilda feels a compelling sense of déjà vu. She convinces Hal to come with her to the small Welsh village where Carys disappeared. They meet a handsome Aussie (James Frecheville) who just happens to have inherited the big mansion where the elderly man died, and invites Matilda and Hal to stay. Matilda is determined to figure out the mystery of the missing girl, including approaching Carys’ mother (the excellent Claire Rushbrooke) who still grieves her daughter’s loss and is angered by Matilda’s appearance.

The village responds to Matilda and Hal’s arrival with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. A strange forest dwelling man might be Matilda’s real father. The local pub owner was the last person to see Carys/Matilda before she disappeared. There are mysterious caves in the woods where Matilda finds herself, unsure how she got there; a farmer whose sheep are mysteriously slaughtered in their pasture; some local ne’er-do-wells are trying to stay one step ahead of the police; and then there’s some villagers with more than a passing interest in the occult. Sylvia, the local antiques dealer (the wonderful Tara Fitzgerald), says the village is special: druids once lived there. If you’ve seen The Wicker Man and/or Hot Fuzz, you may recognize and appreciate the tone of these folk horror underpinnings.

Requiem delivers plenty of moody music, dreamy visuals, and suspenseful situations. The setting is appealing, albeit implausibly romantic and contrived. One reason American viewers often love British series set in rural areas is that it makes the everyday strange: your neighbors, who may be performing spooky pagan rituals under the full moon, may be sitting near you in the pub at lunch the next day. Matilda and Hal’s curiosity and persistence stir this sleepy village to its rafters, uncovering a great deal more than they ever expected to. I found the series ending a bit abrupt and unsatisfying, with too many loose ends left hanging. But I was drawn in sufficiently by the quality of the production, and the characters, that I was left wondering. The six-episode series will apparently have a second season, so we’ll see where the mystery leads.

Peg Aloi is a former film critic for The Boston Phoenix. She taught film and TV studies for ten years at Emerson College, and currently teaches at SUNY New Paltz. Her reviews also appear regularly online for The Orlando Weekly, Cinemazine, and Diabolique. Her long-running media blog “The Witching Hour” can be found at themediawitch.com.