Move over, Black Phillip. You’re not the only beastly abomination roaming the forest floors. No barnyard creature may be as feared as a goat, black ones even more so. Deep in an English wood, Benjamin James Hinds is Ben, a soul pulled in to the mystery of a woodland cult and their titular god. Black Goat is steeped in folk horror, a natural beauty hiding deep, dark secrets.
In the mysterious town of Blackwood Falls, a young environmental engineer investigates a plague affecting local livestock. He uncovers horrifying secrets tied to cult sacrifices and a demonic entity, known as The Black Goat of the Woods.
Black Goat, IMDB
Filmed on location in the forests of the UK’s Midlands, Black Goat makes picturesque woodlands into a waking nightmare. Ben, having been studying a plague of black goo killing local livestock, takes his brother into the woods to solve the mystery. Upon finding a pond not noted on maps — and after having a string of nightmares featuring a goat-headed figure — Ben dives deeper into the lore Blackwood Falls. The deeper he gets, the more blood is shed in this British folk tale.
If any folk horror features a goat, I am watching it. Black Goat doesn’t disappoint with its main culprit cloaked in secrecy and superstition. All of the murders and disappearances of Blackwood Falls residents can be traced back to this monster, and it is all written down in a rare book Ben steals from the library. Black Goat gives you just enough information to keep the mystery alive, while reeling you into its crosshairs before literally ripping you in half (one of many kills I was surprised at being so gruesome — and well done).
Continuously cold and wet, Black Goat seeps into your bones with promises of natural beauty mixed with bloodied entrails and nightmarish dream sequences. Not even the calmness of the woods is untouched; Black Goat utilizes sad, droning instrumentals that provide an eerie atmosphere the entire time.
It is hard to say whether I would have followed Ben down this rabbit hole of mutilated animals and murders, but Black Goat is just so intriguing that the question of who the Goat figure is — or what it is — supersedes the level of danger the woods holds. Slow, uneasy, and methodical, Black Goat fills you with dread as the cult grows more powerful and performs their bloodiest ritual. Will Ben too be brought under to this dark hellscape? You’ll have to watch to find out.
Terror Films’ Black Goat is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video as well as other platforms (Chilling, Scare Network TV, Kings of Horror, Watch Movies Now, Shocks & Docs, TFR’s official AVOD YouTube channel, and more). For more, visit Terror Films on web and Instagram.
