Prime Time: Boys From County Hell (2020)

While I have forgotten the details of it since, I was lucky enough to see, and enjoy, the short film version of Boys From County Hell back in 2013 at the Dead By Dawn horror film festival. I remember it being fun, bloody, and entertainingly playful with a well-known horror archetype. I don't know why I never made time before now for the feature, but the main thing is that I have done so now. 

Written and directed by Chris Baugh (who also helmed the superb Bad Day For The Cut), expanding on the story idea co-created with Brendan Mullin, this is a tale of two friends, Eugene (Jack Rowan) and William (Fra Fee), who are reacting in very different ways to the fact that nothing of interest ever happens in their small town. Tourists stop by now and again, interested in a local legend that apparently inspired Bram Stoker's most famous writing, but even that will become a rarity when a new bypass is built. And that bypass project will be headed up by Eugene's dad (Francis, played by Nigel O'Neill), which will make the pair of them about as popular as a hedgehog at a bouncy castle party. Despite the hostility towards them, Eugene and his dad, joined by Claire (Louisa Harland) and SP (Michael Hough), end up trying their best to keep the locals safe when it transpires that the local legend has returned. And is hungry.

While it's easy to recommend Boys From County Hell as a very enjoyable horror comedy, thanks to it delivering enough laughs and bloodshed in equal measure, it's important to note that it works as well as it does because of the central characters and the journey that we see them go on. Eugene and William are separated from one another in a way that leaves a painful hole too easily filled with guilt and recriminations, which is similar to the space always there between Eugene and his father. Claire doesn't have time for the men unable to see beyond their own insecurities and self-flagellation, but she soon shows that she has a determination and strength that makes her unlikely to stick around in a small town for too long, if she survives the dangerous night ahead.

Baugh takes time to set everything up in the first half hour, but does so while throwing in some minor scares and foreboding moments on the way to the more action-packed second half. It's a good move to start with a powerful and chilling scene before then hopping back in time to show how that moment eventually comes about, and it's also good to have one or two heavy emotional wallops that reverberate through the rest of the runtime.

Rowan makes a great lead, and works brilliantly with absolutely everyone around him. Fee and Harland both get good moments, Hough is responsible for a few of the funniest lines, and O'Neill has fun playing someone so amusingly cold and inconsiderate for most of his screentime. John Lynch and Andrea Irvine are welcome additions, and Morgan C. Jones steals one or two scenes as Charlie, a man who is changed in a way that allows everyone else to see just how weird and deadly their circumstances have become.

It's hard to think of anyone who will hate this, as long as you know roughly what you're in for. The characters are good company, the gags are often all the funnier for being nicely understated amidst the unfolding horror, and there's a good bit of tension in the finale. One or two plot points are a bit too silly and ridiculous, all in service of the comedy though (which I don't begrudge), but the end result is simply a good time for those wanting something that's entertaining, charming, and clocks in at just under 90 minutes.

8/10

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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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Shudder Saturday: Mandrake (2022)

It's weird that Mandrake, a blend of folk horror and rumination on rehabilitation, regret, and resentment, feels like the first film for everyone involved, because it isn't. It's the first feature from director Lynne Davison, but writer Matt Harvey has already written a few other movies, and the cast is made up of people with a wealth of experience between them. It's all put together well enough, I guess, but it also feels incomplete. Someone had one or two interesting ideas, but they didn't realise that they didn't have enough to fill out an actual feature-film runtime.

Deirdre Mullins plays Cathy Madden, a woman who works for the parole board in Northern Ireland. She ends up taking on the case of Mary Laidlaw (Derbhle Crotty), a woman with a notorious reputation in her local area, and given the nickname of "Bloody Mary" after the murder of her husband years before. Mary doesn't seem too intent on showing contrition for her past. She may actually believe that her past actions were right, and she can do something to improve Cathy's lot in life.

I could say a lot more about Mandrake without worrying about spoilers, because there's plenty given away by the title, the poster, and any other marketing of the movie, but I'll stop there. And the paragraph above basically summarises the best of the movie, all of which happens in the opening third. What could have been an interesting character piece, full of tension and creepiness, perhaps making use of an air of ambiguity to keep viewers thinking twice about everything they are watching. Sadly, that's all pushed aside, with everything becoming a lot less interesting as soon as it is all overtly shown onscreen.

Mullins and Crotty are both very good in their roles, and their scenes together are easy highlights as they do their best to work with a script that seemingly tries hard to undermine their performances. What the two women can say without speaking is often then also accompanied by dialogue underlining what the movie wants viewers to pay attention to. The rest of the cast also do good work, but there’s a strange lack of naturalism throughout other parts of the film, making every interaction that isn’t between Mullins and Crotty feel forced and slightly irritating.

Davison directs well enough, and there are a couple of nice visuals here and there, but I think she need a much better script. Although Harvey knows where he is going with the main narrative strand, there’s a lack of confidence throughout, either in his own abilities or the intelligence of potential viewers. I am not exaggerating when I say that this started so strong that I thought it was going to be a new firm favourite, a horror gem to recommend to other genre fans. Watching it all start to unravel was quite the depressing experience, especially as tension ebbed away when it should have been building up towards an impactful third act.

This is probably a classic case of “would have worked much better as a short”, and I look forward to whatever the people involved do next, especially if a few lessons have been learned from making this. There’s not enough in Mandrake to make it anything more than a huge missed opportunity, but I am sure that at least one or two other people will enjoy it much more than I did. If you do, feel free to point out anything you think I have not given due credit.

4/10

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