Some Irish Horror We've Watched Recently
Hey there! Usually we love spoiling the hell out of movies, but since we’re trying to give advice on what to watch on St. Patrick’s Day, rather than just rambling about some vaguely intellectual blah blah, it might be good not to tell you what happens. So no spoilers today, folks. Read on, anxiety-free.
Happy Everyone’s Irish Day! Here are a few Irish horror movies we’ve watched recently. They’re all at least a bit off the beaten path. That is , if you’re looking for recommendations akin to Leprechaun, you’re in the wrong place. All the movies on this list were made by Irish filmmakers, all are set in Ireland, and all play off of fears that, in our American estimations (with some Irish heritage, which pretty much makes us experts, right?… ), seem particularly Irish.
Without Name (2016)
Streaming on Tubi and Amazon Prime as of 3/16/2021
Without Name follows Eric (Alan McKenna), a land surveyor who basically trips balls and goes crazy in the middle of some mysterious woodlands the locals call Gan Ainm (Irish for “Without Name”).
Hired to assess the land for a shady and evasive developer, and in the face of equipment malfunctions, vandalism, and other weird happenings, Eric starts to feel particularly unwelcome. But his employer insists he and his student assistant (and mistress) Olivia (Niamh Algar) finish the job. Eventually, after continued sabotage of their equipment, Eric and Olivia interrogate Gus (James Browne), a young vagrant currently living on the land in his trailer, to find out if he’s the cause.
Low on spectacle, high on unseen (or hardly seen) dread, director Lorcan Finnegan’s feature debut offers quiet, broody, Irish folk horror, or eco-horror if you prefer, focused more on mood and imagery than jump scares and gore. Atmospheric and well-acted, this slow-burn offers a deeply unsettling and artful vision of a beautiful Irish landscape.
The Cured (2017)
Streaming on Hulu as of 3/16/2021
Starring Elliot Page, Sam Keeley, and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, David Freyne’s unique take on the zombie(ish) genre feels like the adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend that always should’ve been made. (We’re putting that “ish” in the “zombie” because Meg refuses the very concept of fast-moving zombie-like beings because, “Zombies represent impending doom, and impending doom moves slow, dammit.”)
In this post-zombie(ish)-apocalyptic world, we’ve found a cure, but it only works on about 75% of the infected. The other 25% are resistant to the cure. Set in Dublin, the film depicts an Ireland that was physically, emotionally, and economically decimated by the outbreak to levels that the rest of the world was not. The cured and the resistant have been rounded up, and we enter the story when the Irish government has decided to reintegrate the cured back into society and the fate of the resistant looms large.
But an awful lot of the public aren’t too keen on seeing the people who ate their loved ones come back, and the cured remember everything they did--an innovative spin on the genre played to excellent horrific effect throughout.
Group all that with good old-fashioned government oppression, simmering class resentment, fear-your-neighbor horror along the lines of Parasite (2019), and you have about the freshest take on the zombie(ish) genre we’ve seen in a long time. (“But they’re not zombies,” says Meg.)
The Canal (2014)
Streaming on Amazon Prime as of 3/16/2021
Ivan Cavanaugh’s The Canal is at its best when Rupert Evans, as the film’s protagonist David, is onscreen, visibly spiraling into paranoia. The cinematography and effects are solid too. But, frankly, we could’ve done with a less-is-more approach. The camera shows too much, leaving little to the imagination, instead of letting viewers work themselves up. Like Hitchcock said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
The film also tries to gaslight viewers, which, in a horror movie, can be a good thing—we’re thinking of social thrillers like Get Out (2017) and The Stepford Wives (1975 more than the 2004 version, but both illustrate the point). The trouble is, The Canal doesn’t succeed. Too many hints come too early, and once you figure out what kind of film it is, everything feels predictable, right down to the ending.
That said, The Canal gets points for being well-shot and well-acted and for having some genuinely unsettling imagery. So, on our officially non-existent movie rating scale, The Canal gets a “not bad.”
Wake Wood (2009)
Streaming on Tubi as of 3/16/2021
After a freak accident leaves young Alice dead on her birthday, grieving parents Patrick (Aiden Gillen) and Louise (Eva Birthistle) sleepwalk through their new, loveless life in the small town of Wake Wood. Patrick, the town’s new vet, mechanically performs a cesarean delivery on a cow, birthing a young calf with an alarming detachment. Louise supervises the local pharmacy, but customers hardly sense that anyone’s overseeing the store. Their house, and more specifically Alice’s old room, has become, as the couple screech at each other, nothing but “a black hole.” Wake Wood is at its strongest when it centers on this family’s all-encompassing loss.
When the town’s head, Arthur, played here by a surprisingly subdued Timothy Spall, offers the parents an opportunity to see Alice again, things veer hard into Pet Sematary territory. Following a gruesome ritual that involves a bit of graverobbing, a body juicer, and a clay birthing chamber (effectively mirroring the aforementioned c-sec), Alice returns to Patrick and Louise’s life for three days. But for this family and the townsfolk of Wake Wood, they’ll soon find that something else has also come back with the revived daughter.
The film unfortunately falls into a bit of a generic plod once the resurrection is complete. Though this is David Keating’s fourth feature-length, the choppy editing and derivative score (two pieces have distinct shades of The Exorcist and Halloween, oddly enough) suggest that of a first timer. Even still, this one might be worth a late-night’s watch, not only for the opening act, but also for the disturbingly-squelchy special effects and for those interested in viewing some pre-Littlefinger Gillen material.
