The Children of Cain

Rebecca VanderKooi
Sep 13, 2025
2 min read

A snapshot of the Southern Gothic style at Ethel Cain’s shows

Arriving at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, the excitement and energy were palpable even outside the venue. The style of every concertgoer screamed Southern Gothic with vintage wedding dresses, lots of camouflage, cowboy boots, antler head pieces, and even one attendee wearing a taxidermied turkey heart as a necklace.

From left to right @indi.cisive, @madisonpaloski, @itslevisanford, @binkydeer

These are the attendees of Ethel Cain's sold-out concert on her latest world tour. The indie/alternative artist whose work has at times been called 'Gothic Americana' released her album 'Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You' last month.

Ethel Cain is a character created by Hayden Anhedönia. Since 2019, Anhedönia's work has told the story of the fictional Ethel Cain, who grew up in Alabama in the 1990s in a religious household. Eventually, she flees her abusive home with the hope of a better future—but she dates a series of abusive men before tragically being killed (and later cannibalized) by one of the men. This latest album takes place approximately five years before the aforementioned events, focusing on Cain's high school relationship with Willoughby Tucker.

Since 2019, Anhedönia's music and visual aesthetics surrounding her projects have leaned heavily into the Southern Gothic style. She explained her view of Southern Gothic to The Face in 2022, "I think there are two types of Southern Gothic. There's the theatrical version – which is how people who are not from the South think of it – and there's the real Southern Gothic. Theatrical is old, spooky churches, the witches in the swamp, alligators and snakes. But there's a subtlety to the real Southern Gothic. It's still the churches, but it's not dark and creepy – it's actually bright and sunny and creepy. It's hot, it's humid, your head is swimming and you hear crickets and cicadas all day. Time moves differently down here."

In the same interview, she also referenced the South's dark history and the ways that that plays into Southern Gothic. As Refinery29 said of the genre's history, "The Southern Gothic genre drew its gothic elements not from the supernatural or the fantastical but from the real-life horrors experienced in the USA's southern states. Using the macabre and grotesque, authors such as Harper Lee, William Faulkner, Carson McCullers and Tennessee Williams began to expose the belligerent racism, gendered oppression, enduring poverty and religious extremism that swept the South after the Civil War."

With Anhedönia's southern upbringing and the topics of abuse and other intense themes explored within Ethel Cain's story, it's no wonder the Southern Gothic style was able to be so seamlessly embraced.

left: David Ross Lawn (@davidrosslawn) right: Robin (@victoriantransmasc)

Every aspect of the concert itself is tailored to this style, with the stage set design including vines and plants hanging from the rafters, as well as plants on the front of the stage and a cross.

The use of fog on stage, combined with these elements, truly created an eerie theatrical experience. It wasn't just the set design, either; the venue itself is unique. While it is French Renaissance-style rather than Southern Gothic, with ornate designs including gold detailing, it felt perfectly suited for the concert.