Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: John Farrelly
Starring: Tom Kerrisk, Livvy Hill, Anthony Murphy
Over the past decade Ireland has become something of a centre for
horror filmmaking, as you might expect for a country with such a rich
tradition of gothic storytelling. In the last couple of years
international cinephiles have been exposed to the Irish language through
breakout hits like Kneecap and The Quiet Girl. Fittingly, we now have the first Irish language horror movie,
courtesy of writer/director John Farrelly's An Taibhse (The Ghost).
Set in the mid 19th century, the film sees famine survivors Eamon (Tom Kerrisk) and his teenage daughter Maire (Livvy Hill) accept the task of
looking after a sprawling 15-bedroom Georgian mansion while its
(presumably English) owners are away for the winter.
So far so Shining, and Farrelly isn't shy about making that influence explicit. Like
Jack Torrance, Eamon quickly begins to go mad, spending his nights
swilling uisce beatha and losing track of time. Eamon's version of
repeatedly typing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" sees him
manufacture dozens of wooden crosses which he lines up on the estate's
lawn, giving it the appearance of a mini-Arlington. When he accidentally
lops his toe off while chopping wood, Eamon has the perfect excuse to
leave the chores to Maire.
Meanwhile, Maire is dealing with night terrors of her own. She believes
she has been followed by a malevolent spirit named Alexander, which may
have had a hand in her mother's demise. Her closet door keeps opening of
its own accord in the middle of the night, she suffers hallucinations
involving menstruation, and most disturbingly of all, she spots her
father prancing about naked outside her window at night.
An Taibhse's Kubrick influences gradually give way to something closer to David
Lynch, specifically Twin Peaks and its feature film spinoff Fire Walk with Me as the fractured relationship between Eamon and Maire becomes
rife with incestual foreboding. Alexander essentially becomes An Taibhse's version of Twin Peaks' evil spirit Bob, with Eamon the Leland Palmer figure it latches onto
as a human vessel to fulfil its evil desires.
Though set in post-famine Ireland, An Taibhse's terrors are of a universal variety. The specific setting only really
manifests itself through Eamon's cross-constructing compulsion, which
suggests he's being manipulated by the spirits of victims of that
atrocity, desperate to be recognised. Eamon and Maire's disagreement
over whether they should stay on as servants when the estate's owners
return or attempt to forge a path for themselves hints at the crossroads
Ireland will find itself faced with in a few decades' time. But An Taibhse should be accessible for anyone regardless of their familiarity
with the specifics of Irish history.
Farrelly and cinematographer Ross Power make clever
use of limited lighting, especially in a strikingly shot chase through
the estate's subterranean caverns (An Taibhse's substitute for The Shining's maze). The warmth of candlelight and the iciness of moonlight are
slowly subverted as the former becomes associated with Eamon's madness
and the latter with Maire's retreat from such. The film's production
design is unfortunately found lacking, with County
Wicklow's Coollattin House resembling its current status as a
tourist trap rather than an active 19th century place of dwelling (look
closely and you'll see some incongruous light switches).
While its thematic influences are clearly of the American variety,
visually An Taibhse has the look of the BBC's classic A Ghost Story for Christmas 1970s adaptations of the Gothic short stories of MR James. But
where those seasonal staples told their stories in 30-50
minutes, An Taibhse has an entire feature length to fill up, and eventually its bag
of tricks becomes tiresome and predictable, resulting in a climax that
resorts to the sort of flashy editing effects that had become dated by
the late '70s. We establish early on what An Taibhse has up its sleeve, and while the movie delivers a few effective
shocks, it's all too short on surprises.
An Taibhse is in Irish cinemas
from March 28th. A UK release has yet to be announced.
