Shudder Saturday: All You Need Is Death (2023)

There have been many films made about people on a search for art that contains dark power, but I cannot think of one that has also focused on traditional folk ballads. Until now. I may be missing something, perhaps even something obvious, but All You Need Is Death certainly feels original enough, despite using the elements within it to provide a fairly familiar warning to the curious.

Simone Collins and Charlie Maher play Anna and Aleks, two people who are part of a strange collective aiming to collect traditional ballads and turn them over to someone (Agnes, played by Catherine Siggins) who then makes a decision about their ultimate fate. Things take a dark and mysterious turn for all three of these characters when they hear a song sung to them by Rita Concannon (Olwen Fouéré), although Aleks is initially kept out of earshot, due to it being a song passed from woman to woman over the years. As the power of the song starts to overshadow each of them, there's also a looming danger in the form of Rita's son, Breezeblock (played by Nigel O'Neill).

It's appropriate that the leads here aren't necessarily great, but are good enough to be effective vessels for the message being delivered. Collins is a standout, but both Maher and Siggins fail to match her in their performances (although they are stuck together in some of the stranger scenes in the movie). O'Neill and Fouéré are both very good, giving the kind of strong supporting turns that you expect from them if you've seen pretty much anything else they have done onscreen.

Writer-director Paul Duane has a solid reputation already, thanks to a few documentaries that have received high praise from those who saw them (sadly, I have yet to get around to those), and a lot of his past work shows his interest in the stories behind various pieces of music. This fictional piece allows him to intertwine various horror movie moments with a premise that both celebrates traditional art and comments on the appropriation of it by people who may not always afford it the respect it deserves.

The visuals don't match the powerful audio moments, predictably enough, and there are only one or two moments that really seem to hit the target that Duane is aiming for, but this is consistently interesting and atmospheric enough to hold your attention throughout. Those who enjoy folk horror should certainly seek this out, as well as those who have enjoyed numerous other British and Irish horror movies from the past decade. It’s no earworm hit single, but I suspect it will become a dark and lyrical deep cut album track for those it resonates with.

7/10

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