A noir detective chases a debt through voodoo, fate and the Devil himself. Stylish, slippery and oddly folky. Worth the descent.

A humid nightmare of ceiling fans, cigarette smoke and moral rot, Angel Heart pulls FolknHell into unfamiliar territory and dares the trio to get snobbish. A private investigator heads south chasing a missing man and instead finds blood, ritual and a debt that can never be settled. The film leans hard into film noir with deep shadows, jazz soaked streets and a lead performance that carries the whole thing like a well worn coat.

Mickey Rourke is magnetic as Harold Angel, moving through the story with a bruised naivety that both works and frustrates. Robert De Niro plays it cool and controlled, all immaculate fingernails and quiet menace, while the New Orleans setting brings voodoo iconography, Catholic dread and a sense of ritual that flirts with folk horror rather than fully embracing it.

The conversation circles around atmosphere first. The hosts praise the cinematography, especially moments that feel almost monochrome until colour sneaks back in, and the way the film sustains mood for over an hour. Where it stumbles is in the final stretch. Revelations arrive thick and fast, sinister ideas are rushed through, and some motifs feel like they were meant to land harder than they do.

That leads to the big question. Is Angel Heart folk horror. The film has old beliefs, ritual, black magic and a community that quietly resists the outsider. But it also flips the formula. The detective is the danger, not the villagers. For some that inversion makes it an intriguing edge case. For others the voodoo and community elements feel more like set dressing than driving forces.

What everyone agrees on is that it is a fascinating watch. A Faustian story wrapped in noir clothing, elevated by performance and style, and let down slightly by missed opportunities for deeper dread. Not pure folk horror, but close enough to argue about over another drink.

FolknHell final score: 20 out of 30

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