There is no escaping reminders of a certain Stephen King adaptation in this unsettling Irish-language horror from John Farrelly.
A man and a woman become winter caretakers of a looming (ultimately snowy) pile while its usual occupants are elsewhere. The male party, haunted by visions, goes alcoholically insane and takes to walloping his companion.
If you haven’t got there yet, a late violent reversal – no further spoilers – confirms homage, accidental or not, to The Shining.
None of which is meant as criticism. Differing contexts and tones put proper distance between An Taibhse and the Stanley Kubrick film. In mid-19th century Ireland, Máire (Livvy Hill) and her father, Éamon (Tom Kerrisk), take control of a vast Georgian house while the owners winter somewhere warmer.
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We have barely settled into our seats before the atmosphere curdles. Máire is mildly taken aback to discover a Mr Punch doll – an object unnerving even on a sunny beach – about the place. The library appears to house an obscure secret. We hear of a sinister figure called Alexander. Premonitions of a fiery ceremony point towards folk-horror tropes.
Through it all, Máire becomes more and more freaked, while Éamon becomes more and more belligerent.
Farrelly and his team make ingenious use of their limited resources. The smart bits of the house do have the feel of a museum – as if a blue rope should fence off the furniture – but, elsewhere, natural light is manipulated to heighten the sense of obscure malign presences.
The director is not afraid to risk long, long shots – one of which, cancelling the opportunity of retakes, involves the violent destruction of an elaborate prop.
Edited to a taut, busy 92 minutes, the film works itself into a symphony of niggling submelodies: blood, religion, familial abuse.
One is, nonetheless, left a little unsure as to what An Taibhse is really about. Irish audiences will be constantly aware that these are the post-Famine years, but, a host of crosses on a hill noted, there is little explicit reference to that catastrophe. Indeed, the connection may not even occur to overseas viewers.
What we do get is an impressive, if scattershot, variation on universal anxieties. Good performances. Queasy atmosphere. Inventive making-do.
In cinemas from Friday, March 28th
