5 must-watch Czech films featuring unsettling folk traditions

From witches to pagan rituals, these Czech films transform local customs into disturbing, yet gripping, stories where the familiar turns frightening.

Mord (Our Lovely Pig Slaughter) follows an extended family gathering for their annual zabijačka (a traditional Czech pig-slaughtering feast) in Osoblaha. This year, tensions rise as one of the protagonists announces the tradition’s end, while buried conflicts resurface amid drinking, secrets, and revenge. The film explores love, heritage, and fragile family bonds.

Set against this long-standing winter ritual once central to village life, the story highlights the social and culinary significance of zabijačka. Traditionally held before Masopust to preserve meat, the event remains a communal feast rich in nostalgia and tradition.

Polednice, or the noon witch, commonly appears in Czech folklore and other Slavic traditions as a crone or beautiful woman who turns up on hot summer days dressed in white and carrying a scythe or shears. Tales of the witch were said to have scared children away from valuable crops; she is also the personification of heat stroke.

The Karel Jaromír Erben poem Polednice, the ultimate tale of parental anxiety, depicts a mother suffocating her son while trying to protect him from the “creature”. Antonín Dvořák’s 1896 symphonic poem The Noon Witch, was inspired by the poem as was the 2016 Czech horror film Poldenice (Noonday Witch) starring Anna Geislerová. In fact, it's so scary that The Prague Reporter mentioned it in its list of the top 15 best Czech horror movies ever.

The tradition sees men spanking women with a stick on Easter Monday to ensure health and fertility. Men receive eggs, sweets, or, even more frequently, a glass of slivovice (plum spirit) in return. Although not widely practiced, leap years “allow” the roles to be reversed and let women take the chance to spank men.

A rather brutal portrayal of the pomlázka in action can currently be seen in Slovak director Tereza Nvotová 2022 supernatural Nightsiren, which examines a young woman’s harrowing return to her rural village.

Czechs seem to have a particular knack for vábení jelenů, also known as impersonating a randy deer. Stag rutting season brings a number of local competitions—typically accompanied by festive music and the requisite liquid provisions—where participants use everything from ox horns to old lamps to approximate the primal bleat of the randy buck. The Czech film Men in Rut (Muži v říji) is a humorous ode to this Czech tradition.

Miloš Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball (Hoří, má panenko, 1967) is a satirical Czech New Wave comedy set at a chaotic small-town firefighter’s ball. Featuring real firemen instead of actors, the film critiques corruption and incompetence under communism.

A centerpiece of the absurdity is a forced beauty pageant, where reluctant women are pressured to participate, only to vanish in protest. The scene mirrors unsettling folk rituals, where social expectations force compliance despite discomfort. This was Forman’s final Czech film before exile, marking a turning point in his career.

Widely regarded as the greatest Czech film, Marketa Lazarová (1967) is a mesmerizing medieval epic of pagan rituals, brutal clan warfare, and religious upheaval. Directed by František Vláčil, this visually stunning drama adapts Vladislav Vančura’s 1931 novel.

Set in 13th-century Central Europe, it follows Marketa, a feudal lord’s daughter, kidnapped by rival knights just before taking convent vows. The film’s poetic storytelling and stark imagery create a mystical yet brutal medieval world, capturing the clash between Christianity and paganism in a dreamlike, immersive experience.