131 The flm sub-genre now commonly known as Folk Horror has been the focus of much research of late. As Adam Scovell laid out in his oft-cited ‘Folk Horror chain’, the sub-genre consists of flms that focus on landscape, isolation, skewed belief systems and morality, and a summoning/ happening (Scovell 2017, 17–18). Usually the setting is rural, but some theorists have argued that psychological isolation or social diference can also be the basis of a Folk Horror narrative, even if it takes place in an urban setting. These theorists point to the foregrounding of counter-cultural values as the primary element that brings about isolation and sets a flm within this genre. As Andy Paciorek notes in his article, ‘Cursed Earth: Landscape and Isolation in Folk Horror’: In considering isolation we have to remember that whilst it may in some instances relate to being out in the wilderness alone, it could also relate to being culturally or socially isolated for instance being a stranger among strange folk. (Paciorek 2021) Regardless of the actual setting, be it rural or urban, the Folk Horror narrative centres upon an iso- lated community into which an outsider, or an interloper, is introduced. This character ultimately becomes threatened by the new community in which they fnd themselves. Sometimes the inter- loper is a character who would normally be aligned with the hegemonic power structure but who is queered by entering a culture that is foreign to their experience, such as Sergeant Howie of The Wicker Man; while other Folk Horror flms cast the interlopers as individuals who are considered to be outsiders specifcally because of their sexuality, like in the flm Spiral, in which a homo- sexual couple fnd themselves the targets of an ancient cannibalistic cult that exploits xenophobia in order to prey upon newcomers to their small town. In still other Folk Horror narratives, the interloper status of the main character slowly emerges as they undergo a shift in self-identifcation that is brought about by the aforementioned summoning/happening of the Folk Horror chain. Here, the character in question moves from the status of societal insider to outsider as a result of a psychic transmutation that is set of by a counter-cultural pagan infuence with which the pro- tagonist comes in contact through a lucid dream, a folk ceremony, a ritual, or some other mystical happening. These incidents set the protagonist on a path of self-exploration and discovery which may, ultimately, lead them to embrace a new identity. This is the basis of ‘Penda’s Fen’, in which 12 QUEER FOLK The Danger of Being Diferent Beth Kattelman DOI: 10.4324/9781003191292-15