For most of my childhood in North Cackalacky
my grandparents picked me, my sister and our cousins up from school and we’d spend the afternoon doing homework, playing in their yard, snapping green peas or watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.
I didn’t realize how special that was until I became an adult and understood afternoons like that aren’t guaranteed — that the people who fill them don’t stay forever.
In those car rides, my grandparents played cassettes of Fats Waller or church sermons. They told stories about growing up in South Carolina, running a farm, working at RJReynolds factory, or swimming with sharks in St. Thomas before school.
But if I heard the same story more than twice:
“Oh yea, doesn’t that story end like [insert bored (but respectful) 8 year old retelling] … can we listen to the radio now?” 🤦🏾
Maybe Legacy of Folktales is my mea culpa for not realizing the importance until it was too late… but I have a feeling I’m not the only one.
Why subscribe?
As I grew older, I realized the perspectives my grandparents shared aren’t reflected in the movies I watch (even in films from their generation). And I wonder, what’s my responsibility to pass those on? and add new ones?
Legacy of Folktales is an extension of the YouTube channel I built to exorcise thoughts around southern myth, family stories, generational memory, films, history and folklore — We explore how American mythologizes its past and which stories we lost — from Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion to modern horror films. Here on Substack, I ask questions that didn’t make the videos to uncover what we inherit and how it shapes the way we see ourselves today.
What you’ll get
Deep-dive essays on folklore, horror, and cultural memory
Behind-the-scenes notes on films I’m developing
Curated reading lists, resources
A community of readers who want to see culture differently through story.
My constantly evolving definition of a new southern gothic sub-genre called Plantation Horror
Who I am
My name is Neil Creque Williams. I’m a film producer and writer from Winston-Salem, North Carolina currently based in Los Angeles. I produced Miss Juneteenth and a documentary on Durham’s Black Wall Street and the 2008 financial crises that I may release someday. In the years after Miss Juneteenth was released, I’ve seen how regional festivities can grow into national holidays and how Opal Lee, “the grandmother of Juneteenth”, can go from yearly marches for Juneteenth to the presidential medal of freedom recipient.
Four things sparked Legacy of Folktales: the 2023 writers/actors strike, my southern gothic horror script The Plat-Eye, the inaugural Blumhouse/K Period screemwriting lab and a trip to Disneyland during the removal of Splash Mountain (two weeks after the lab). Something about these sequence of events ignited a curiosity to explore American myth, folklore, movies, horror and storytelling.
I work in Direct To Audience℠ distribution as Head of Filmmaker Relations at GATHR. As a producer and filmmaker, I’m a Sundance Creative Producing Fellow and Na mymy work has been supported by Sundance, SXSW, The Gotham, Film Independent, The National Board of Review AFS, SFFilm/Rainin, Westridge, Rideback, Blumhouse/K Period and Hope For Film Fellowships.
My mission
I want Legacy of Folktales to be a space where creators, storytellers and audiences can question the stories we inherit — and imagine new ones. After over 20 years in the entertainment industry, I’ve experienced and seen the invisible work many creators undertake to bring cultural specificity to their work.
Essentially, Legacy of Folktales is a home for surplus research that doesn’t always make the final product, but whose exploration informs its creation.
Join The Crew
Legacy of Folktales started as a YouTube channel. The Substack is where the questions go deeper — essays, film analysis, and cultural excavation, 2–3 times a month.
Subscribe free. Support us on Patreon if the work means something to you. And check out the YouTube comments — that’s where the real conversation lives.
