British Horror

Cornwall is the English county famed for its stunning coastal beauty and historic villages which have turned it into a sought-after destination. However, more recently it may be recognized as being the home of innovative, startling, and vaguely unsettling cinema. Mark Jenkin is the one to thank for the bold new addition to cinema, as the inventive director hailing from Cornwall who also fits the description of a skillful screenwriter, cinematographer, and producer. He won the 2020 BAFTA award for Outstanding British Debut with his first feature film Bait (2019) and followed it up a few years later with Enys Men (2022), both of which he also wrote. Both features establish Cornwall as their setting, theme, plot, and arguably, as their main character. Bait and Enys Men could also reasonably be categorized as two of the freshest entries into horror of the last few years - especially Enys Men - but the haunting films also seem to create a wholly new genre of their own, blending drama, folk, and at times, thriller. With these films, Jenkin triumphantly puts Cornish cinema on the map.