2010 • Swiss
A remote Alpine hut, three lonely goatherds, too much absinthe and the sort of homemade woman no one should be proud of inventing. This week Folk ’n’ Hell heads into Swiss folklore with Sennentuntschi (2010), a film that promises mountain dread, rural superstition and a curse with goat hair in its teeth, then proceeds to make Andy, Dave and David spend much of the episode trying to work out what on earth has just happened.
Directed by Michael Steiner, Sennentuntschi begins with a body in the woods, a village already primed for witch-hunting and a mysterious woman in religious dress who sends the locals into immediate panic. From there it skips between present-day discovery, 1975 village hysteria and a bleak mountain story involving goatherds, folklore, sexual violence, revenge and possibly the supernatural. Possibly. That uncertainty is part of the intended mystery, but the hosts are not convinced the film earns it.
Andy finds just enough supernatural suggestion in the ending to argue that the film does qualify as folk horror. The legend seems to come horribly true, with bodies, straw effigies and a revenge scenario that feels too physically impossible to be merely ordinary crime. Dave and David are less persuaded. For them, Sennentuntschi wears the hat, clutches the goat bones and mutters the right words, but underneath it is closer to a true-crime mystery with folklore wrapper than a film driven by ancient belief.
“I felt like it was a folk horror wrapper that when unravelled was just a true crime mystery.” FolknHell host, David Hall
The episode is a lively post-mortem on a film full of promising ingredients: Alpine isolation, Catholic guilt, village suspicion, old tales, bad men in remote places and a landscape that should be doing half the frightening for free. The problem, as the hosts see it, is that the film keeps throwing ideas at the wall without enough framing, character work or atmosphere to make them stick. There are moments that land, including a couple of nasty visual shocks and some lovely mountain photography, but also a soundtrack that behaves as if it has wandered in from several other films.
So, is Sennentuntschi frightening, strange, beautiful, daft or all four? Folk ’n’ Hell’s answer is: occasionally striking, often baffling, and probably not the Alpine folk horror triumph it wants to be.
Sennentuntschi (2010) begins with a grisly discovery in the Swiss woods, then pulls the viewer back into 1975, where a mysterious woman appears in a mountain village and instantly triggers suspicion, religious panic and violence. Meanwhile, in a remote goatherd’s hut, three men drink, tell the old Sennentuntschi legend and apparently conjure or encounter a woman made from bits and pieces, with deeply unpleasant consequences.
The film moves between the village, the hut and buried secrets involving a priest, an earlier crime and a folklore tale that may be supernatural truth or human horror dressed in myth. Andy, Dave and David spend much of the episode wrestling with the film’s timelines, motives and reveals, which arrive less like creeping dread and more like someone emptying a sack of explanations onto the floor.
This is where the episode properly starts sharpening the knives. Andy argues that Sennentuntschi does cross the folk horror threshold because the ending appears to fulfil the Alpine legend discussed by the goatherds. The remote setting, the folk belief, the strange revenge and the final body-horror imagery all suggest that something beyond ordinary human violence may be at work.
David and Dave are not having it so easily. David’s neatest summary is that the film feels like a folk horror wrapper with a true-crime caramel centre: it looks and sounds like folklore, but what it finally reveals is more priestly abuse, hidden rooms, village hysteria and human cruelty than old magic. Dave also feels it lacks the uncanny pressure that stronger folk horror creates, where the land, community and belief system seem to close in around the characters.
“I don’t think it was folklore either. I mean, it didn’t have that kind of uncanny feeling to it that the good folk horror movies have.” FolknHell host, Dave Houghton
The verdict is split, but the balance leans sceptical. Sennentuntschi has the materials: isolation, superstition, a mountain community, a folk tale with teeth and a woman treated as both monster and victim. What it struggles to create is that deep rural wrongness where myth and place feel inseparable.
- Folklore as excuse and explanation The Sennentuntschi legend gives the film its most obviously folk horror shape, but the hosts question whether the story uses folklore as a living force or as a decorative cover for a grim crime plot.
- Confusing timelines Present day, 1975 and earlier events overlap in ways that should produce mystery, but for Andy, Dave and David too often produce bafflement. The film’s big reveals depend on careful temporal control, and the hosts feel that control is mostly missing.
- Village hysteria without build-up The villagers seem ready to persecute the mysterious woman almost immediately. Rather than a slow social panic, the film gives us a community already lathered up, which makes the superstition feel abrupt rather than frightening.
- Sexual violence and exploitation The hut scenes are deeply unpleasant, and the hosts are clear that the film’s treatment of rape feels jarring and poorly handled. It is horrific in subject matter, but not necessarily effective as horror.
- Landscape not doing enough work The Alpine setting should bring distance, exposure and dread, and there are beautiful shots of mountains and weather. Yet the hosts never feel the isolation as strongly as they should, especially compared with better examples of remote-location horror.
- A soundtrack with other plans The music becomes a recurring point of disbelief, from grand orchestral menace to odd song choices that jar against the rural setting. It is memorable, but often for the wrong reasons.
The hosts do not come away recommending Sennentuntschi with much enthusiasm. David gives it some credit for not being hateful to sit through, and Andy admits he enjoyed trying to fill in some of the gaps himself, but the combined score lands very low: 21 out of a possible 90.
As folk horror, it divides the room. Andy sees enough supernatural revenge and fulfilled legend to let it in through the gate, possibly while checking its pockets. Dave and David are more inclined to leave it outside with the goats, arguing that the film is really a true-crime story wearing folk horror clothing.
There are flashes of promise, some nasty imagery and a few impressive Alpine views, but the hosts find it muddled, poorly framed and not especially scary. Their practical advice: for isolation, mountain dread and genuine folk horror atmosphere, watch Sator instead.
How each host rated this film