Frewaka, on Shudder

Most people think weddings and births are good things, but spooky old Peig warns her new Galic-speaking home-care nurse, as transitional junctures, they actually make people more vulnerable to the “Sidhe,” Ireland’s malevolent fairy folk. She should know, since she claims the Sidhe kidnapped her on her wedding day. Shoo (Subhan) was warned her new charge had been diagnosed with delusional paranoia, but obviously there must be something to Peig’s story, because director-screenwriter Aislinn Clarke’s Frewaka premieres today on Shudder.

Shoo’s abusive mother just passed away, but she still hopes to marry her Ukrainian girlfriend Mila, once they have the money. That is two red flags for the Sidhe. Just being around Peig constitutes the third, since the old lady considers herself under a constant state of supernatural siege. She lasted this long thanks to all folk charms protecting her house, which Shoo initially dismisses as mere clutter.

Things get weird quickly. However, a bond starts to grow between Shoo and Peig, as a result. It seems to be them against the fairy and human worlds, because the locals give off serious Wicker Man vibes.

Admittedly, Frewaka is not as straight-up scary as Clarke The Devil’s Doorway, but the unsettling atmosphere of paranoia and ancient corruption definitely gets under viewers’ skin, Even though her prior film was set in a Magdalene convent, Frewaka more vehemently expresses Clarke’s sense of Ireland’s historical inequalities. Yet, the Church is almost entirely absent here. Instead, it is paganism all the way through.

Lies We Tell, Rewriting J. Sheridan Le Fanu

In gothic fiction, never count on family members to have your best interests at heart, especially the scandalous once or twice removed kind. This will be especially true of Maud Ruthyn’s Uncle Silas—as in that Uncle Silas. With “modern” audiences in mind, screenwriter Elisabeth Gooch revised and re-worked Le Fanu’s classic to “unproblematized” the annoyingly “virtuous” heroine, rather unnecessarily, considering the original novel clearly indicts the legal and social constraints placed on 19^th Century women. However, fans of the novel should be amused by the musical chairs putting familiar characters in somewhat different positions throughout Lisa Mulcahy’s Lies We Tell, which releases this Friday on VOD.

Poor Ruthyn’s father passed away, leaving her in the care of his brother Silas. Frankly, a pall still lingers of her Uncle, even though he has been cleared of the suspicious locked-room death of the man whom he owed considerable gambling debts. Her father’s trustees wish to challenge the codicil, but she unwisely trusts in family.

Initially, uncle and niece play nice, but there is immediate friction with his caddish son, Edward. Instead of siding with her, crusty old Silas encourages her to acquiesce to his son’s often inappropriate (or worse) advances, clearly with the intention of maintaining control over her fortune, even after she reaches her majority.

Uncle Silas never really manages to gaslight his niece, but he buys the loyalty of the servants and Dr. Byerly, one of her father’s two trustees. Consequently, Ruthyn finds herself cut off from the outside world, including Captain Ilbury, the second trustee. Thanks to the mercenary Byerly she also faces the very real threat of institutionalization, which was especially grim in the mid-1800’s.

Lies We Tell will appeal to viewers who know and love Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas in much the same way Dark Shadows fans were intrigued to see longtime cast-members fulfilling different roles in the early-70’s films. It adds a novelty element that greatly helps when the second act bogs down in the hopelessness mandated buy the film’s sexual politics.

The pace picks up again down the stretch, when Ruthyn reasserts herself. It is worth noting this section adheres most faithfully to Le Fanu’s source novel. Indeed, for long stretches, Gooch ‘s screenplay commits the very same sins it was intended to redeem.

The Clean Up Crew, with Antonio Banderas

Gabriel the crime boss likes quoting Machiavelli and forcing his prisoners to play Russian roulette, because he thinks they are both intimidating. At least once, someone should tell him: “go stuff your Machiavelli, I read Sun Tzu.” He is less than thrilled about paying-off the anti-crime task force, but he accepts it as a cost of doing business. When a group of crime-scene cleaners find their overdue payoff stashed up the chimney, both the gangsters and the crooked cops will come looking for them in Jon Keeyes’ The Clean Up Crew, which releases tomorrow on-demand.

Gabriel might possibly have been dragging his heels a little too long with their latest payment, so when two rogue thugs temporally intercept the bribe money, the cops threaten to expose Gabriel’s operation. With full-scale war on the horizon, maybe he really should be reading The Art of War.

It is quite a mess by the time the cleaners got there. Nobody escaped the Mexican standoff cleanly, but one of the injured thugs survived to return to the scene of the crime just as Alex and his co-workers were leaving with the money. Somehow, the cops missed it, but in their defense, they were probably just incompetent.

Alex’s boss, Siobhan just wants to turn it over to the cops, but his fiancée Meagan convinces him to take the money, for the sake of their future. Fortunately, the drug-addicted former-something-military Chuck can handle Gabriel’s wounded enforcer. In fact, they decide to take him with them. Soon, Gabriel returns the favor, kidnapping Meagan, which enrages Alex, making him much more amenable to Chuck’s methods.

Throughout it all, Antonio Banderas is highly entertaining preening and gorging on scenery as Gabriel, the pretentious crime boss. He elevates the character above his literary quirks, raising the level of the film with him. Derek Carroll and Conor Mullen also add some nice gritty energy as Gabriel’s police contacts.

All You Need is Death: Very Irish Folk Horror

There were a lot of Devil-themed Delta Blues songs, but Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress song-hunters never encountered anything as sinister as this Pagan Irish wail. It is not merely a relic of the “old ways.” It predates all forms of Irish language as we know it. Those who learned to sing it have sworn to preserve its secrecy, especially from mercenary song-hunters like Anna and Aleks, who desperately want to record it in director-screenwriter Paul Duane’s All You Need is Death, which releases Thursday in theaters and on VOD.

Anna and Aleks are not from around these parts. She is a Dubliner (as well as an Irish folk singer) and he is an unspecified Eastern European, who has come to Ireland to escape some vague, undefined trouble. Whatever it was, he probably should have stayed. In hopes of jump-starting their song-hunting venture, they attend a seminar given by Agnes, who lectures on ethnomusicology in the way some house-flippers can pontificate on real estate in airport hotel conference rooms.

They were hoping Agnes would help them follow-up a lead on the big one: a song so ancient it might even predate Paganism. Of course, Agnes tries to extract it from boozy Rita Concannon for herself, as the couple soon discovers when they walk in on the two together. However, the weird old crone is more receptive to Anna, but not Aleks. He must wait in the car, because of his chromosomes. Anna double-dog promises not to record Concannon’s eerie keening, but the elderly woman neglects to get similar assurances from Agnes.

For a while, the three agree to work together, but soon Agnes and Aleks take up together and cut out Anna. Instead, the spurned singer joins forces with Breezeblock Concannon, Rita’s son, a dodgy itinerant puppeteer, who assumes Agnes is responsible for his mother’s gruesome murder. Of course, viewers know it was really the primordial entity, who punished her for unwittingly breaking her pact. Through the power of the song, it is also changing Agnes and Aleks, in really nasty, body-horror ways.

As is often true for horror movies, Duane’s set-up is wonderfully atmospheric and powerfully unsettling, but the pay-off is disappointingly silly. In this case, the premise and first two acts are particularly intriguing and darkly suggestive, but the crash comes a little earlier than usual, with probably twenty minutes or so left to stagger through. Nevertheless, the good stuff up-front still more than compensates for the weak back-end.

In many ways, AYNID represents another entry in the music-that-kills sub-sub-genre, following Dead Wax, Black Circle, and The Piper. However, Duane use of the Irish folk tradition makes it feel fresh and very much its own thing. This is a profoundly Irish horror film, even more so than movies like The Hallow, Unwelcome, The Hole in the Ground, or Cherry Tree.

NYICFF ’24: Puffin Rock and the New Friends

Puffins look like they share the same tailor as penguins and they have a similar charm, but they are not as overexposed in pop culture. So far, the Netflix series Puffin Rock, co-created by Irish animator Tomm Moore, has been the best place to find puffins. After two seasons, the inhabitants of Puffin Rock get a feature of their own in Jeremy Purcell’s Puffin Rock and the New Friends, which screens as part of the 2024 New York InternationalChildren’s Film Festival.

Oona is still a bright and curious young puffin, who often gets into adventures with her friends, but always dutifully cares for her younger brother Baba. Even after two full seasons, he still looks like he is freshly hatched. Mossy the pygmy shrew and May the rabbit remain her besties, but she is about to make some new pals.

Initially, Isabella is rather standoffish when her colony relocates to Puffin Rock. The narrator blames climate change, but viewers will suspect it was the rising crime and punitive tax rates of blue-state puffin colonies that drove them out. Regardless, Isabella is reluctant to putdown roots again. That includes making friends.

In contrast, Oona and her buddies form a fast friendship Marvin, a youthful otter who also found his way to Puffin Rock. Quick thinking Oona realizes Mavin is such a prodigious digger, he can help the expanded puffin colony dig warrens to protect their new-comers from an approaching storm. Unfortunately, Isabella will completely torpedo the plan and endanger the entire colony. First, she misinterprets Marvin’s intentions when he burrows up near her mother’s egg, so she removes it from the nest. That is a big puffin no-no. When the colony freaks out over the missing egg, she is too embarrassed to come clean, so she blames Marvin.

See how much trouble unchecked immigration can cause. Of course, New Friends is trying to make the exact opposite point, but at times, the narrative almost contradicts its sentiments. It hardly matters though, because Oona is such a likably plucky character. She is just a darned good puffin kid, which makes spending time with her a pleasure.

As was also true for the series, Chris O’Dowd’s narration is wildly charming. Although omniscient and off-screen, his voice becomes another character. He has a touch of blarney and a touch of sarcasm, but his tone is always gentle and warm.

Jon Wright’s Unwelcome

Redcaps are basically goblins or leprechauns gone bad. They are supposedly mainly Scottish, but also Northeast Ireland, where Jamie and Maya have just inherited a home. Locals call then the “Little People,” but if you cross them, you could get it right in the lucky charms. Criminal lowlifes are also pose a danger to their wellbeing in Jon Wright’s Unwelcome, which opens Wednesday in theaters.

Just when Maya’s pregnancy test finally tests positive (as they hoped), she and Jamie are badly beaten by a gang of thugs. Fortunately, a presumably safe escape from London estate violence suddenly opens up when Jamie inherits a somewhat dilapidated but cozy Irish country home from his eccentric aunt. The only stipulation, according to his late aunt’s friend, is that they leave a little bit of raw liver by the gate to the woods each night as a “blood offering” for the “Little People.”

Okay, fine—Maya will humor her. The problem is grouchy old “Dad” Whelan is the only contractor available to fix the hole in their roof. It won’t take long to figure out why he and his creepy family were idle. Things will take a Straw Dogs turn, but the Redcaps in the woods are the wild card that could save the couple, but at what cost?

Too much of Unwelcome focuses on the Irish-style Deliverance business, but when the Redcaps finally show themselves, they turn out to be awesome. They are actually laugh-out-loud hilarious, in a darkly macabre sort of way. They out shine the Leprechaun and Gremlin franchises when it comes to attitude. The creature design work is also pretty cool.

It somewhat makes sense Wright (who previously helmed Grabbers and Robot Overlords) tried to hold back and not show too many Redcaps too soon, to maximize their impact, but they are far and away the best thing about the film. Colm Meaney is appropriately sinister as Whelan, but his abusive behavior is not nearly as much fun. Hannah John-Kamen and Douglas Booth are frankly a little too whiny and a little too drippy to embrace with much enthusiasm as Maya and Jamie.

Gateway: Ireland’s Grungiest Haunted House

Evidently, Irish junkies are smarter than their dealers, because they learned to stay away from this abandoned house. However, Mike and his associates need to grow some weed fast, so they decide to convert it into a grow-house. Alas, they will not get very far in screenwriter-director Niall Owens’ Gateway, which releases this Friday on VOD.

Evidently, Mike suffered a very personal loss that he has yet to fully process. Likewise, Eddie is still raw from the death of his estranged father. Mike’s mate Joe is struggling with his separation from his wife and his strained relationship with his daughter—and the fact Mike might be partly to blame. Together with Phil, who is a real tool, they try to set up a pot growing operation in a mysteriously shunned house. Of course, it hardly takes any time before they are seeing things and lashing out at each other.

Gateway is moody as heck and definitely a slow builder—almost too slow. Owens definitely appears to share a Ben Wheatley influence, because the first half hour is all about the low life thugs’ dysfunctional relationships. However, when the house starts to do its thing, it definitely gets eerily unnerving.

The house is definitely a profoundly unhealthy environment. Frankly, Owens never reveals the full extent of its secrets. The glyphs we see on its walls are only a tantalizing tease that start to look like red herrings.

Regardless, Owens definitely cranks up the atmosphere of decay and menace. Gateway is a lot like Relic and Amulet, in the way it makes a drab environment feel overwhelmingly evil. Plus, the unsettling sound design skillfully deepens the disorientation and foreboding.

Let the Wrong One In: Vampire-Slaying in Ireland

This pack of vampires really ought to be more careful when they turn more vampires. Matt’s lowlife brother Deco is not the sort of bloke you want to spend eternity with. For Matt, he is still family regardless, so staking him will be difficult in Conor McMahon’s unruly vampire comedy, Let the Wrong One In, which releases Friday on digital and in select theaters.

Matt is the responsible, painfully nice brother, while Deco is not. The sunlight is really bothering him this morning, so he begs Matt to let him into their mum’s house. She threw him out because of his stealing ways, but Deco can still exploit his brother’s guilt. Awkwardly, he repays Matt’s mercy by projectile vomiting blood in his face. That won’t be the last time that happens in this movie.

Soon, Henry the vampire slayer is on their doorstep, pretending he is there to help. Slaying is personal to him, because the leader of the pack is his beloved fiancée, who was turned during her bachelorette party (in Romania, because it was cheap). He keeps tabs on vampire movements through reports from his fellow cabbies (which is kind of clever).

Wrong One is often funny, but almost always in an outrageous meatheaded kind of way. The story itself is no great shakes, whereas the best horror-comedies (like Extra Ordinary) have a narrative that would be interesting even without the laughs. Despite the intentional echoes of the title, Wrong One never specifically spoofs Let the Right One In. They both just happen to be about vampires.

Wolfwalkers, from Apple and GKIDS

Robyn Goodfellowe is an outdoorsy young girl, who is often seen in the company of wolves. Yes, she wears a cloak with a hood, but it is black, like Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell’s heart, rather than red. At first, the lupine creatures frighten her, but she soon learns she has a mysterious kinship with them in Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart’s Wolfwalkers, which premieres tomorrow on Apple TV.

Goodfellowe’s brawny British father Bill has been dispatched to Kilkenny to hunt down the wolves running rampant in the woods outside the walled city. Unfortunately, it is going very badly. The wolves seem to have human-like intelligence to find and disarm his traps, because in some cases they do. Mebh Og MacTire and her long-missing mother Moll, the matriarchal leader of the wolfpack, are “Wolf Walkers,” who stride about as humans when they are awake, but assume lupine form when their traditional, upright bodies are asleep.

Despite her father’s stern warnings to avoid the woods (and the wolves therein), Goodfellowe quickly befriends Mebh. In fact, her encounters with the wolves brings out her inner Wolf Walker, a revelation she keeps secret from her father. He is under mounting pressure to exterminate the wolves, whom the Puritan Cromwell (not to be confused with Thomas Cromwell, of Wolf Hall, his great-great-grand-uncle) equates with Pagan licentiousness.

Moore & Stewart’s animation is absolutely gorgeous, taking inspiration from Medieval woodcuts and illuminated manuscripts. They also distinctively blend in simple but evocative line animation to convey Goodfellowe’s POV, while she is wolf-walking. The Goodfellowes’ father-daughter story is also quite sweet—at times even touching, even though her bafflingly reckless decisions can cause acute face-palming. Regardless, Sean Bean’s vocal performance as the gruff hunter is easily one of the best viewers will hear in an animated film this year.

Sea Fever: Enjoy a Contagious Monster Movie

You would think superstitious sailors would never name their vessel after the legendary nymph Niamh Cinn Oir, given how tragically her romance with a mortal ended, but apparently this salty sea-faring couple did just that. However, everyone on-board seems to believe redheads are unlucky. That will make things even more awkward for their new passenger, a ginger-haired grad student. However, they will need her marine biology expertise when they encounter a strange mollusk creature in Neasa Hardiman’s Sea Fever, which releases today on VOD.

She prefers the lab, but Siobhan must conduct some field observation to complete her advanced degree. The Niamh Cinn Oir is not exactly a research vessel, but its owners, married couple Gerard and Freya need the money. The spectrum-ish Siobhan does not exactly endear herself to the crew, but her scientific knowledge and scuba diving talent will come in handy when the ship is thrown off course by a large mysterious object, damaging their radio and navigation.

It turns out the trawler is tied up by the tentacles of a large squid-like monster. Rather ominously, its secretions have a corroding effect on the hull. Even worse, it holds weird parasitic organisms that causes blindness, projectile-hemorrhaging, and madness. As a scientist, Siobhan understands the need to quarantine everyone on-board before they return home—if that will even be possible—but the rest of the crew doesn’t want to listen.

Sea Fever is an unusually moody monster movie that builds as much tension out of character-based conflicts as it does from the thing in the ocean. Most of the crew have very distinct personalities, including Freya & Gerard, as well as Omid, the Serbian engineer (who is nearly as standoffish as Siobhan) and gray-haired Ciara (who is not as kindly as she looks).

Although this is clearly a scrappy production (the polite way of saying “low budget”), the creature effects look decent. Admittedly, Hardiman tries to imply more than she actually shows, but that is usually a wise strategy, even when budget constraints are not an issue. Her screenplay also makes the underlying science sound credible and realistic. In some respects, the film evokes the vibe of vintage Doctor Who (in the best, nostalgic way), as well as the isolated alienation of John Carpenter’s The Thing remake.

Extra Ordinary: Ghost-Talking in Ireland

Rose Dooley has the Irish equivalent of the Shine. Her father Vincent called it “The Talents” on his low-budget 1980s In Search of-style television show, until she accidently killed him with her powers. She now works as a driving instructor, constantly turning away ghost-hunting customers. However, a desperate father with a bewitched teenaged daughter will convince Dooley to return to her paranormal calling in Mike Ahern & Enda Loughman’s gentle (but still kind of sinister) supernatural comedy, Extra Ordinary, which opens this Friday in New York.

Despite the encouragement of her single but mega-pregnant sister Sailor, Dooley is rather sad and lonely. When the eligible looking widower Martin Martin books a driving lesson, she is immediately interested. Yet, when he admits it was all just a ruse to get her to talk to the ghost of his henpecking late wife, she still initially refuses. However, when Martin’s daughter Sarah mysteriously falls into a supernatural coma, Dooley comes around.

The culprit is Christian Winter, a notorious one-hit-wonder, who intends to sacrifice a virgin to Satan, in exchange for a comeback. Sarah Martin would be the virgin. Dooley manages to cast a holding spell to keep her from floating away, but she and Martinx2 must hustle to complete some crazy supernatural business to break the spell. You should really just see it for yourself.

In terms of tone, Extra Ordinary is not so different from audience-pleasing Irish comedies like Waking Ned Devine¸ but it also cheerfully sprays around a fair amount of goo and a little bit of gore. Somehow, Ahern & Loughman make it work. Without a doubt, a lot of the credit goes to the rapport of their co-leads Maeve Higgins and Barry Ward. They play off each other well and their halting, goofball romantic chemistry is sweetly appealing.

Yet, perhaps the best parts are the perfectly recreated VHS playback scenes from her father’s old television show, featuring the pitch-perfect scenery-chewing Risteard Cooper as the turtleneck wearing Dooley. The humor of these sequences is totally nutty, but they still manage to establish the supernatural rules that the film plays by.

Lost & Found: Gentle Irish Ironies

This interconnected slice of Irish life could have been titled Two Weddings and Three Funerals, except one of the weddings is called off at an embarrassingly late date. You could also think of it as Friday the 13^th: The Series, without the horror elements. Each of the linked storylines revolves around an object that finds its way into a sleepy Irish rail station’s lost items department. Somehow, they tend to find their way into the right hands during the course of Liam O’Mochain’s Lost & Found, which is now playing in select theaters.

Daniel is the new lost & found guy. He was hired by Joe, who is a drunken reprobate, who constantly hits on Daniel’s mom, but in a charming Irish kind of way. Daniel plays it rather fast-and-loose with the office’s stupid rules, but he is also a soft touch for a panhandler’s sob story. He pops up in nearly every story, and he will play the leading role in at least one, in addition to the framing device.

Perhaps the most poignant tale is “Ticket to Somewhere” in which Eddie, a rather agitated middle-aged gentleman, begs for train fare to visit his wife and daughter in hospital. Ironically, the best of the braided tales happens to be The Tent, which is partially set it Poland. Daniel returns to the homeland of his recently deceased grandmother, a Kindertransport survivor, in hopes of recovering a small part of her legacy. Of course, he will do so in a rather eccentric fashion.

Lost & Found is an unhurried, low-impact film, but it is not without its charms. O’Mochain and editor Ciara Murphy stitched together several short films he made over a number of years, squeezing them into the framing conceit. That maybe doesn’t sound so promising, but they manage to shoehorn everything in quite effectively.

It helps that they have a game cast, starting with O’Mochain himself. Initially, he is likably lunkheaded as Daniel, but he shows greater range in The Tent. Few would argue Liam Carney is the head-and-shoulders standout for his heart-breaking performance as Eddie the distressed traveler. Even though the humor is mostly rather gentle, Brendan Conroy and Seamus Hughes mine the material for laughs quite diligently, as Daniel’s boss Joe and his meat-headed running mate, Gabriel, respectively.

Admittedly, Lost & Found is an extremely Irish movie, but fortunately, O’Mochain did not feel compelled to load up the soundtrack with a bunch of traditional Irish fiddle music. Instead, Richie Buckley’s upbeat score swings nicely thanks to its easily audible jazz inspirations.

Lost & Found won several awards while on the festival circuit—and it is not difficult to see why. It is not a particularly deep film and O’Mocahin does not quite tie together all the loose end. However, he still pays it off nicely. Frankly, according to the laws of nature and the principles of science, it is impossible to actively dislike this film. Pleasant but mild mannered, Lost & Found should be relatively accessible for more mature patrons, who are most likely its target demo. Recommended fans of Roddy Doyle movies and Patrick Taylor novels, Lost & Found is now playing in select theaters, including the Kew Gardens Cinemas in Queens.

Sundance ’19: The Hole in the Ground

Sinkholes naturally occur when the earth below the surface is eroded away by water. Essentially, the ground becomes corrupted and collapses. Perhaps that makes the phenomenon an apt metaphor for Sarah O’Neill, who is seeking a fresh start with her young son after leaving his abusive father (or not). Unfortunately, she will trade a conventional horror for a supernatural one in Lee Cronin’s The Hole in the Ground (trailer here), which screened during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

O’Neill was largely successful shielding her precocious son Chris from her violent husband, but she carries the physical scars of his abuse. They have moved to a sleepy provincial village, where nobody knows them—exactly the sort of place you find in horror movies. O’Neill has become a relentlessly overprotective mother, but Chris still manages to slip away into the woods, where an ominous looking sinkhole sets off all her internal danger alarms.

Shortly thereafter, the borderline catatonic wife of their nearest neighbor suddenly snaps to, telling O’Neill her son is not really her son. Unfortunately, she will start to suspect that herself when Chris’s behavior starts to change. Most distressingly, he has apparently lost all memory of the secret game they share. Horrifyingly, O’Neill comes to suspect her son has been replaced by a doppelganger, but she is deeply confused and conflicted regarding how she should treat him.

Hole is another horror movie that offers a revisionist take a parenthood, just like Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook. In this case, O’Neill’s formerly beloved son turns into a little monster. It is also a fine example to Irish horror, which generally seems to be distinguished by moody atmospherics as well as an often sinister view of rural life and the natural environment (as exemplified by Don’t Leave Home, Without Name, The Hallow, and The Canal).

As O’Neill, Seána Kerslake convincingly implodes into a puddle of paranoia, while James Quinn Markey is quite chilling as the supernaturally altered bad seed boy. Their scenes together are all kinds of tense and awkward. It is almost a two-hander, but James Cosmo adds some grizzled humanity in his brief but memorable supporting turn as their neighbor, Des Brady.

Granted, Hole is not outrageously original. Any fan could rattle off a list of films sharing a similar premise, but Cronin’s execution should still keep their attention focused. This is definitely a prime example of well-produced horror, especially with respects to Tom Comerford’s evocative cinematography and Jeroen Truijens’ subtly eerie sound design. Recommended for discerning horror consumers, The Hole in the Ground screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, ahead of its distribution via A24 and DirecTV.

Don’t Go: Reality Collapses on Stephen Dorff

Have you ever had the sensation after an accident or an embarrassing foot-in-mouth gaffe that you could almost take it back by reversing time, if only you could get the right leverage? Ben Slater is convinced he is tantalizing close, but that means he is still agonizingly far in David Gleeson’s Don’t Go (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Tragically, Ben and Hazel Slater’s daughter died in a household accident. That would be painful enough, but the exact details (that will be revealed over time) are almost unbearable for the grieving father. Somehow, the couple muddles along, hoping a fresh start managing Hazel’s late father’s small Fawlty Towers-looking inn on the Irish seacoast will give them a new lease on life. She will handle most of the innkeeping, while he will teach English at the local Catholic school.

That is the plan, but it quickly becomes apparent Slater is not yet ready to move on. Weirdly, he keeps seeing the presumably misspelled words “Seas the Day” everywhere. He also starts having a recurring dream of the day he and Hazel built an elaborate sand castle with their daughter while vacationing at the family property. When Slater discovers he can carry items from that day back into the present, he becomes obsessed with the notion he can also save their little girl too. Meanwhile, Hazel’s Ab Fab-esque girlfriend Serena makes everything more awkward with her unstable presence.

Eventually, Gleeson and co-screenwriter Ronan Blaney dive head-first into Jacob’s Ladder territory, but the first two acts are quite mysterious, with a hint of the mystical, yet still mostly rather grounded. Stephen Dorff continues to be one of the best genre-specialists, who can seemingly turn up the intensity with the flick of a switch. He is reliable as ever portraying Slater, especially in his scenes with Melissa George, who is quite terrific as Ms. Slater. Their pain feels real and raw. Simon Delaney provides a nice counterpart, as well as a positive Catholic figure playing the good natured but perceptive Father Sean, while Aoibhinn McGinnity is all kinds of sultry and self-destructive as the disruptive Serena.

Don’t Go is one of two films opening this Friday (both from IFC Midnight) that throw ostensive reality into a state utter and complete chaos. However, Don’t Go works better than its brethren, because of its strong character development and the sign-posts it drops early on, for future reference later on. Recommended for genre fans who enjoy head-tripping films, Don’t Go opens this Friday (10/26) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Don’t Leave Home: A Portrait of Irish Horror

Portraiture rarely turns out well in horror stories—just ask the model in Poe’s “Oval Portrait.” Religious experiences generally turn out badly as well. Little Siobhan Callahan has the misfortune of combining both. Her infamous disappearance inspires an American artist to take a pilgrimage to the scene of the “dark miracle” in Michael Tully’s Don’t Leave Home (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Brooklyn.

The title sounds like a gimmicky riff on American Express, but it is actually a moody, existential Irish horror movie, very much in the tradition of The Devil’s Doorway. In fact, the films share two principle cast members. As is usually the case with tales of mysterious evil forces, it began years ago. The Callahan family worked for the parish priest, Father Alastair Burke, a skilled amateur painter. One day, Burke painted Siobhan as she stood at an early Christian altar in the forest, where she seemed to become bathed in light. The she disappeared, both from the canvass and real life.

Years later, Melanie Thomas is trying to depict the incident in her work. She is a diorama artist, not unlike Toni Colette in Hereditary, but fortunately she doesn’t have a family of her own. After a getting an unfair critical drubbing, Thomas receives a call from Father Burke’s caretaker, Shelly. He read about her show and wants to see and most likely buy the Callahan piece for himself, so off she goes to Ireland. It turns out Burke is nice old gent, who clearly remains haunted by events from his past. On the other hand, Shelly seems to mass produce bad vibes. Their taciturn handyman-manservant Padraig is not particularly welcoming either.

Thomas’s experiences on their secluded estate are all kinds of Gothic, channeling all the usual suspects, from Du Maurier to The Innocents to Hammer Films, but Tully has something rather fresh and original up his sleeve. He also has two terrific trump cards in Lalor Roddy and Helena Bereen (also recently seen together in The Devil’s Doorway), who are both terrific as Father Burke and Shelly. Here Roddy is refined and anguished but also unsettling, in the tradition of vintage Peter Cushing, while Bereen just has a knack for putting viewers immediately on edge.

Anna Margaret Hollyman also gives an unusually strong horror movie performance as the intuitive but insecure Thomas. Arguably, the cast is so good, they manage to not get completely up-staged by the creepy locations in and around Killadoon House in County Kildare. Cinematographer Wyatt Garfield really runs with the Gothic atmosphere, giving the film an eerie, perpetually overcast look. This is a smart, literate genre film that continues the mini-Irish horror renaissance represented by films like The Devil’s Doorway, The Lodgers, Cherry Tree, and The Canal. Recommended highly for neo-Gothic horror fans, Don’t Leave Home screens this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (9/14-9/16) at the Brooklyn Alamo Drafthouse.

The Lodgers: Gothic Ireland

Loftus Hall has a bad track record when it comes to hosting company. According to legend, it is haunted by the ghost of a girl who went mad there when she discovered the handsome young houseguest who caught her eye was really Satan himself—but that will have to keep for a different movie. This film shot on location in the County Wexford manse is all about the supernatural entities below that control the lives of the teenage residents. Twins Rachel and Edward (we dare not speak their family name) are caught in a tragic cycle, paying for the depravities of their sinful ancestors in Brian O’Malley’s The Lodgers (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select cities.

Rachel and Edward’s parents committed suicide. Apparently, it runs in the family. Unfortunately, they are not alone. A malevolent force comes out after midnight to claim nocturnal dominion over the spooky mansion. The twins must abide by their three rules: be tucked into bed by midnight, never allow a stranger to cross the threshold, and never be gone for long. Obviously, this is bad for their social development, but Rachel still manages to start a haltingly flirtatious relationship with Sean, a decent lad who recently returned from WWI with a relatively mild case of PTSD.

Rachel meets Sean just as she starts to question whether she should obediently accept her fate, like her badly stunted brother. To further destabilize matters, the sleazy family solicitor Mr. Bermingham starts coming around, pestering Rachel to allow him to sell the property, in order to get them out from under their mounting debts. Plus, Dessie, the local bully constantly targets Rachel, because she is vulnerable and Sean, because he fought with the British.

The Lodgers is a deliciously atmospheric gothic yarn in the tradition of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, with some luridness cribbed from V.C. Andrews thrown in for extra salaciousness. Loftus Hall is definitely a sinister setting—it is hard to imagine anyone ever living there comfortably. Location is half the battle in a film like this, but Charlotte Vega is terrific as Rachel. There is also something surprisingly poignant about the tentative romance percolating between her and Eugene Simon’s Sean, as two underdog outsiders. Bill Milner is suitably creepy and clammy as the soul-ravaged Edward, while David Bradley looks like he might have ambled in from a Hammer Horror movie as dissipated old Bermingham.

Written by David Turpin, a composer and literature professor, The Lodgers is clearly engaging with the gothic tradition. However, it also challenges traditional Irish prejudices, with respect to landowners and the British. (Many will find the hostility unleashed against Sean rather shocking, but remember, Ireland maintained formal neutrality during WWII as well.) Like the best of gothic chillers, it is more about the sustained mood of foreboding (which O’Malley maintains quite surehandedly) than jump scares or gross-out moments. Recommended for fans of the genre, The Lodgers opens this Friday (2/23) in New York, at the Village East.

The Cured: Post-Zombie Ireland

Just what we needed, more forms of identity politics. In this case, it is your zombie status that really matters. It’s more complicated than you might think. After the outbreak of the Maze Virus, a cure was developed that returned 75% of the infected to their former human state. Alas, one quarter remain feral zombies, the so-called “Resistants.” Having lived through a zombie apocalypse, many of the uninfected still harbor suspicions of the other 75%, perhaps with some justification in David Freyne’s The Cured (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

There is already a substantial body of film that speculates on how society would adjust to a cure for zombie-ism, including the BBC America show In the Flesh and the Canadian film, The Returned. The notion that some of the uninfected still hold a grudge is an old saw by now, but Freyne still harps on it. The first wave of “Cured” integration was not exactly a smashing success. Senan and Connor are part of the second. They hunted together during their zombie days, which they still vividly remember. One of their victims was Senan’s brother, a fact he declines to share with his American sister-in-law Abigail when she agrees to take him in, but the memory still tortures him.

Senan wants to live a quiet life and be a good uncle to his nephew, but Connor is a bad influence on him. Before the zombie outbreak, Connor was an up-and-coming politician, so he logically becomes a leading figure in the Cured-power movement. They argue they are merely a civil rights group, but there is reason to suspect they yearn to return to their days of brain-munching.

The Returned wants to lecture us on inclusion and understanding, but it is undone by its genre.

When you make a zombie movie, you need to have the zombie hoards start rampaging eventually, so you have to have a reason the fragile peace collapses. In this case, it is Connor and his Cured militants who upset the not so great equilibrium. That means they really are dangerous after all, so the hawkish skepticism was justified, rendering film’s didactic messaging null and void. Except for Senan, it sure starts to look like the only good zombie is a dead zombie.

In Maze, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor played an IRA terrorist serving time in HM Maze Prison, while in The Cured, he plays Connor, who was infected with Maze virus. It is highly debatable which character shows more remorse, if at all. Regardless, he is unsettling intense as the Cured resistance leader—arguably so powerfully so, he helps undermine Freyne’s efforts to liken the Cured to dispossessed immigrants and victims of police brutality.

To her credit, producer Ellen Page disappears into the role of mournful Abigail, but it is not like she has an overpowering movie star presence to contend with. Seriously, Juno was over ten years ago. Sam Keeley is also an effectively woeful sad sack as Senan. Yet, Paula Malcolmson has some of the best lines and the most interesting business as Dr. Joan Lyons, who is convinced she can cure the Resistant too, if she can just get six more months to perfect a serum, or maybe a full year—eighteen months, at the outside.

The Cured is so busy using zombies as a vehicle for Romero-esque commentary, it doesn’t even notice when its allegory collapses. Guess what? Zombies are dangerous, that’s what. Vaughan-Lawlor is impressive, and the Irish urban backdrop lends itself to the demilitarized dystopian near future. It just doesn’t add up to what Freyne intended. Too muddled to recommend, The Cured opens this Friday (2/23) in New York, at the IFC Center.

SF Indie Fest ’18: Maze

IRA member Larry Marley was shot down in retaliation for the murder of loyalist John Bingham and the Provisionals duly responded by killing loyalist William “Frenchie” Marchant as payback. You can definitely say he was enmeshed in a tragic circle. Frankly, prison was probably the safest place for him to be, yet he masterminded the IRA’s most notorious prison break. The careful planning and execution of the escape gets the big screen treatment in Stephen Burke’s Maze (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 SF Indie Fest.

Her Majesty’s Prison Maze no longer stands, but in the early 1980s, it was a maximum-security prison for both IRA and UVF militants, which often led to some tense confrontations in the corridors. Marley participated in the 1981 hunger strike, but reluctantly ended his fast. Feeling guilty, he struck on the notion of a large-scale escape as a way to boost morale. However, most of the IRA prison leadership initially dismisses the scheme as unrealistic.

Nevertheless, by agreeing to do prison chores (contrary to the hunger strikers’ demands for special privileges), Marley starts to get a comprehensive picture of the Maze’s security systems. By currying favor with Gordon Close, a frazzled warder who recently survived an assassination attempt, Marley picks up on little flaws to exploit. However, he also starts to begrudgingly respect his jailer as a fellow father and human being.

In fact, the film rather backhandedly suggests the greatest flaw in Maze security were the British guards, who were too humane in their treatment. Like they say, no good deed. Of course, it is rather tricky, maybe even perilous, to make a Troubles film in the delicately balanced post-Good Friday era. Yet, Burke pulls it off by giving hints Marley could envision an era of peaceful coexistence, but he had to maintain his IRA street cred in the meantime. Whether or not it is historically accurate, it makes it easier to spend time with him as our focal character.

Still, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor is so realistically twitchy and clammy as the tightly-wound Marley, it almost undoes all of Burke’s efforts to humanize him. On the other hand, Barry Ward does some of his best work yet, aching and brooding as harried and alienated Close. Their “friendship” has no big TV movie moments. It is a rather circumspect and restrained business, but we still totally believe it when Marley appears distressed to see him covering for another warder on D-Day.

There is some satisfying jail-breaking action, but Maze is unusually even-handed and well-spoken for a historical prison movie. Burke never gins up resentment against the warders with manipulative beating scenes. He also makes it clear one guard is ultimately murdered during the course of events, probably gratuitously. Arguably, Maze is about as de-politicized as it could be, while still openly inviting us to sympathize with the escape-planners (and seeking Irish box office returns). Recommended as a nicely-staged prison-escape film, Maze screens tonight (2/11) and Thursday night (2/15) as part of this year’s SF Indie Fest.

School Life: A Year in an Irish Boarding School

Life at Headfort School is a little bit Tom Brown’s School Days and a little School of Rock, but it is all Irish, all the way. John Leyden and his wife Amanda have been faculty members at the coed boarding school since the early 1970s. They are starting to think it might be time to consider retirement, but they worry idleness could lead to a precipitous decline. As the year commences, they resolve to keep at it, as long as they maintain a proper level of professionalism. We will watch them guide their young skulls full of mush through a rather productive looking year in Neasa Ní Chianáin & David Rane’s fly-on-the-wall documentary, School Days (a.k.a. In Loco Parentis) (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

She teaches literature and drama. He teaches scripture and Latin, but also serves as the advisor to the campus rock band and art club, so it is safe to say he is using both sides of his brain. Mr. Leyden can be a bit acerbic, but they are both quite popular with their students. In fact, one of their former pupils returned to serve as headmaster.

Together with their colleagues, the Leydens will work on several students who need extra attention. Arguably, their biggest success story will be a high-functioning dyslexic boy, who was always well liked on campus, but finally seems to get a handle on his academics this year. Conversely, they will have trouble coaxing a high-achieving, socially aloof girl out of her shell, but maybe there are some encouraging signs late in the year. However, one troubled midterm transfer will have to be a work in progress.

It is surprisingly interesting to track the various pupils’ progress through the film. Perhaps Chianáin and Rane are onto a new pedagogical tool. Arguably, the stakes could not be higher, because the youngsters’ time at Headfort will directly influence which secondary school they are admitted into and largely mold them as moral-ethical adults. Yet, the vibe is almost always relaxed and soothing.

Essentially, School Life is a Wisemanesque documentary for people who read James Herriot and Patrick Taylor. Both Leydens are pleasant companions to spend time with and their students seem jolly well behaved. Plus, the Headfort campus could not possibly be any more picturesque. As an extra added bonus, Mr. Leyden will even guide his kids towards an infectiously peppy rendition of Ellie Goulding’s “Burn.”

This film is sort of like their performance. It will win you over, even if you were not expecting much. The stress level never rises too much, but it is just nice to know an institution like Headfort can maintain their standards and traditions while still keeping up with the times. Respectfully recommended for general audiences, School Days opens this Friday (9/8) in New York, at the IFC Center.

The Pilgrimage: Transporting The Rock

It wasn’t that long ago that the Irish saved civilization, but by 1209 they are apparently ready to go all in with the barbarians. Christianity has consolidated its hold on Europe, so woe unto those who are not down with Rome’s program. In this case, the Pope has decreed a relic held by a remote Irish monastery should be moved to the Vatican. The Brothers know this is a mistake, but they still faithfully comply.  A ragtag group of the faithful and the zealous will embark on a violent road trip in Brendan Muldowney’s The Pilgrimage (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Supposedly, The Rock of St. Matthias martyred the apostle who filled Judas’s vacancy, but it caused the hurler to immolate immediately thereafter. Since then, anyone of insufficient virtue who touches it, meets a similar fate. It might not look like much, but The Rock sure would be handy to have on a crusade.

Frankly, Brother Geraldus the Cistercian is more of an inquisition guy than a crusader, but he has embraced his assignment from the Pope with typical fervor. In exchange for safe passage, Geraldus has promised the aging Baron De Merville absolution, but his rebellious heir, Raymond De Merville has cut his own deal with the king. However, he did not bargain on the fierce fighting prowess of The Mute, a lay penitent, who has taken a vow of silence. The Mute is more concerned with protecting the young novice Brother Diarmuid than The Rock, but he is certainly no stranger to killing.

There are a few decent scenes of hack-and-slash action in Pilgrimage, but Heaven help us Brother, is it ever didactic. Geraldus is such a prissy, preening, unsubtly vile anti-Catholic caricature, he makes it difficult to get past his polemical howlers. At one point, when recalling how he killed his own father on the rack for so-called heresy, Geraldus hisses: “the problem wasn’t that he lost his faith in the Church, he’d lost his fear of it.” Ooooh, how cold.

If Muldowney had read a little Thomas Cahill and laid off the polemics, Pilgrimage could have been an agreeably muddy and gritty action historical. Cinematographer Tom Comerford makes it all look appropriately dark and dank. Most importantly, Jon Bernthal has the chops and the presence for the silently glowering Mute. On the other hand, Stanley Weber is a horror show of villainous tics and clichés as the mustache-twisting Geraldus. Tom Holland, the new Spiderman nobody asked for, is a vanilla wallflower non-entity as Diarmuid. However, John Lynch lends the film more dignity and gravitas than it deserves as the noble Brother Ciarán.

After watching Pilgrimage you will feel like you were hit over the head with a giant mace, just like De Merville’s foes. This is definitely a case where less could have been more. Not recommended, The Pilgrimage opens today (8/11) in New York, at the Village East.