The October chill has hit which means the Bram Stoker festival has begun. It’s Dublin’s time to celebrate and honour Bram Stoker, the author of the most famous vampire around- Dracula. Events over four days and four nights lead you all around Dublin City, from the Casino of Marino to Dublin Castle, you are sure to learn all about Stoker and Dracula’s life.
On Friday the 25th of October a fantastic family friendly spectacle ‘Frank and McSteins Monster Laboratory- Out of the Lab and into the Fire’ took place in Dublin Castle.
Starting the evening early- queues had begun building up half an hour before the event started. Groups of people entering the grounds at 6pm sharp- the tower highlighted red for Dracula himself People were starting to warm up to the spooky ideas with interactive games and flames Frank and McSteins helpers putting out the fire Fire and crazy scientists meet art and street theatre for Halloween Frank teaching the youth of today his evil waysWhere there’s smoke there’s fire Getting gothic at Dublin CastleFrank gave us a wave before the big show- little did we know what was to comeFrank led the crowds through bringing this animatronic to life, many attempts were made, and many arguments were had with the other mad scientist McStein. Eventually, the two scientists pulled it together. There he is, slowly coming to lifeAnd after a long day of creating life, fighting fire… and lighting fire, witches and ghouls alike skipped home ready for bed.These guys had seen enough madness to last them through Halloween
Shudder Street, a new horror webseries, is coming to a screen near you next week. Erica Carter talked through the inspirations behind the new series with writer and director Seán Donohoe and producer Orlagh Doherty.
Still from episode ‘Exorcism’. Image courtesy of Shudder Street.
Shudder Street is a new anthology-horror series set in Dublin, due to premiere next week. There will be four different episodes, each set in a different house on the same street. As the series goes on, we’ll soon see each different plot connect to one another. Donohoe revealed where he got the idea for Shudder Street from:
“I took a little inspiration from the British anthology series Inside No. 9, that tells a different standalone story every week, each set in their own singular location,” he said. “That gave me the idea to confine each segment of Shudder Street to its own individual house.
Donohoe wanted to tell different, standalone stories due to the freedom to explore different subgenres and ideas, but liked the idea of connecting them all with one overarching narrative. “It made location scouting a breeze as we were working with virtually no money, but also presented us with certain limitations that we had to work around. It was a learning curve for all of us, but I think it worked out well for the most part!”
Doherty came on board after the original script was written, and really enjoys the idea of an Ireland-based horror series. “It’s a different type of horror than a lot of series I’ve seen, the colloquial, everyday language used really makes it,” she said. “I think that having Irish slang in this really brings a different element to it. Definitely a great success!”
“We are a country with such a morbid history and folklore, sure we’re the birthplace of Dracula, Carmilla, and Dorian Grey for God’s sake!”
The idea of an Irish series in particular was incredibly important to Donohoe too: “I wanted to make a horror project that was distinctly Irish,” he said. “Not so much in the sense that there’s faeries and banshees running around the place, but more so in a colloquial sense.
“I wanted to take these common horror conventions and tropes but set them in a world that was familiar and close to home, in this case suburban Dublin. I wanted these characters to speak in a way similar to how myself and the people around me speak. I feel like some Irish media can feel very Americanised and I wanted to avoid that with Shudder Street. For the most part I think we succeeded!”
“I feel like Ireland has never really took off in the world of horror cinema the way that the UK or The States have,” he explained. “It’s unusual because we are a country with such a morbid history and folklore, sure we’re the birthplace of Dracula, Carmilla, and Dorian Grey for God’s sake!”
Image courtesy of Shudder Street.
Doherty is delighted that Shudder Street has now come together and is finally ready to be shown to the public, after almost two years in the making. “Seeing a vision on paper and getting it on screen is something I find so exciting to be honest,” she gushed. “It involved a lot of planning, we got a great casting director to come on board and we just set goals each week to get little things accomplished, such as locations and crew.
“We just dealt with things as they came, and it all worked out. Seán and I originally started editing the script in January 2019, started filming around April that year and finished filming in May 2019. Post production has been the longest process though. Because it was a zero budget production we had to try to adapt to our cast and crew’s availability and time table so we didn’t have a set deadline for anything.”
Due to filming taking place last year, Shudder Street luckily didn’t run into any Covid-19 related production issues, although the crew are sad that they can’t celebrate. “In an alternate covid-free world, there would definitely be a Halloween Shudder Street Spookapalooza!” laughed Donohoe.
Shudder Street will be available to view on YouTube from Tuesday the 20th of October.
Overlord: a decent action-based horror; a bad horror; an okay movie. It’s exceptionally average in many respects. A soldier named Boyce, portrayed by Jovan Adepo, finds himself a soldier in Operation Overlord and, more specifically, the D-Day landings of World War II. After becoming separated from his fellow troops after parachuting from a flaming plane, Boyce makes contact with three others who had jumped alongside him. One of them is Corporal Ford, played by Wyat Russell. Ford promptly takes control of the situation and the small group are soon being led to a nearby French village by a young French woman named Chloe (who is played by Mathilde Ollivier).
The central characters mentioned above don’t contribute much more than who they might be described as on paper, Overlord seldom delivers a moment that can be taken very seriously. A plot can be flawed but augmented by interesting characters. However, this isn’t the case in Overlord. Wyatt Russell cast as some kind of commanding force with a touch of rogue just isn’t a good fit. It feels downright contrived every time he attempts to convey stoic heroism.
Russell might have been suited to the more similar personality of Boyce rather than the Corporal. Having said that, Jovan Adepo did a good job as the innocent Boyce and was probably the most believable character, so realistically, Russell probably just shouldn’t be in this movie.
Boyce is the young, earnest protagonist who stumbles across the sadistic Nazi experiments // IMDb
The plot surrounds a subject no one in the world isn’t familiar with: the Nazis are conducting secret, inhumane experiments. And apparently, they’re also doing this near an incredibly obvious point of invasion for the allies. Not that there was any kind of method to gauge the timescale of the movie, but unless the audience was being heavily led astray, the main protagonist jumped from a plane, met three other people and was led to the location of sadistic experiments, which absolutely would hold the potential for turning the tide of the entire war, all on the same night. There’s a thin line for the Nazis between high levels of confidence and stupidity being very fast breached by the front line of the allied forces in this movie.
Another major quarrel with this film is that as a horror movie, it simply isn’t scary. There’s rarely a moment of tension during any attempt to set up even the most predictable of jump scares, which are usually a poor excuse for not having something scary to begin with. Horror movies are unique in that they can be, in probably too many cases, stripped back to reveal an absurd plot line and sometimes the actors aren’t all that they should be, but given the genre, sometimes people don’t really care about those things because it’s just a thrill to feel freaked out, and that’s fine. The glaring problem here is presenting none of the above, and then failing to do what it says on the spooky tin.
Wyatt Russell plays the often cliched Corporal Ford, showing glimpses of his father during the more action-packed scenes // IMDb
There is definitely some gruesome, unsettling imagery, and this is especially true for the horrific creatures which are seen all too briefly towards the end of the film. But the movie’s failure to capitalise on the creepiest elements is frustrating. It’s a waste of time if the main premise of the film is almost ignored entirely. To top this off, Overlord has too many moments that can only be described as comedy relief. But there is no relief if the audience isn’t tense to begin with. It actually borders on being annoying and ultimately portrays the characters as being less serious. If done right, comedy can be a great way to control the pace of a horror movie and allow the audience a moment to breathe in between scares; it can lure the viewer into a false sense of security only to pay it off by exploiting that feeling later on.
There’s nothing wrong with simplicity. In fact, it might be an underrated virtue in cinema, but Overlord is a boring movie because it doesn’t cover what makes even a simple story interesting or unique. It takes its time in all the wrong places and, as a result, doesn’t really keep the audience on the edge of their seats long enough to be let down by the horror that never quite makes it onto the big screen by the end.
Game of Thrones’ Pilou Asbæk continues his impressive knack of truly immersing himself as a hideous villain // IMDb
Remakes tend to be emblematic of Hollywood’s general creative malaise. Some hot shot, studio hack director is brought in to regurgitate an old franchise you never much liked in the first place. That’s the pessimist’s view. But if you have a capacity for hope, you could view remakes as an opportunity for reinvention. Especially if they are filtered through the perspective of an exciting cinematic voice.
With that in mind, we come to director Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 Giallo horror, Suspiria. The original, and this new version, both tell the story of a young woman, Susie Bannion, who is accepted into a dance academy in West Berlin. A skilled dancer, she wins over the academy director, Madame Blanc, and is welcomed into a new, darkly seductive world. But there is danger lurking just beneath the surface at the academy, and a previous student, who has recently gone missing, had been raving about a dark conspiracy involving a coven of witches …
Argento’s original was notable for its distinctive visual flair, as well as its striking scenes of violence, and has been hailed as an influential film within the horror canon. But the original’s style is noticeably dated, and Guadignino, the director of this new iteration, is hot off a career-high success – his last film, Call Me by Your Name was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one for best screenplay. So surely, this 2018 reimagining of Suspiria has the necessary ingredients to be the optimist’s idea of a remake.
Suspiria’s sharp, emphatic dances are some of the film’s most satisfying scenes // IMDb
Well, yes and no. As a director, Guadignino has recurring motifs that he likes to explore in his films, namely relationships, intimacy and the human body. These were explored in both Call Me by Your Name, and his previous effort, A Bigger Splash. And in his version of Suspiria, he stays true to form, for better or worse.
Suspiria’s effective moments come from scenes involving the human body in movement. There are some great, visually arresting scenes featuring the academy’s dancers at work. The camera and the sounds chop and snap with the dancer’s movements, vividly bringing the scenes to life. This visual flair is also present for the film’s supernatural violence. The gore isn’t constant in this version, but when it strikes, it strikes hard. One particular scene is so remorselessly bone twisting, it will have the most grizzled horror veteran wincing.
The film’s presentation is generally impeccable. There are some nightmare sequences dotted through the film, and they are perfect dread-inducing nightmare fuel. Even little touches like the film’s evolving act cards add to the film’s generally pristine visual quality. The performances – notably the film’s two main characters, played by previous Guadagnino collaborators Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton – are all excellent to a person.
Dakota Johnson’s plays Susie Bannion, a talented, ingénue dancer // IMDb
But while the film has plenty of style and pedigree, it suffers from a general lack of focus. Unless you’re telling a sprawling story, horror should be lean and direct, and the scares and violence should serve a story. This version of Suspiria feels meandering. In fairness, that’s the director’s style; he likes his stories to have a naturalistic, freewheeling quality. But for horror, concision is key. The film also tries to add unnecessary subtext – detailing the wider situation in Germany at the time of the narrative – and a needless subplot involving a character’s tragic romantic past. A historical romance subplot, no matter how expertly crafted, just feels odd in a film like this. Add this to the inflated run time, and the overall experience suffers greatly.
Suspiria’s qualities, and its problems, seem like a byproduct of the director’s creative vision meshing with the content and style of the original film. In other words, Guadagnino’s eye for effective visuals and stirring moments are let down by his preoccupation with human relationships, worsened by lethargic and unfocused pacing. This creative disconnect weighs down an already bloated experience. And while there is a lot to like in this new take on Suspiria, it lacks the merciless bite of a truly great horror.
Michael Myers is back, and he’s as bloodthirsty as ever. The highly-anticipated addition to the Halloween series sees the triumphant return of the slasher mainstay.
It has been forty years since audiences were left gasping for air at the sight of the masked man on a murderous rampage. In the time since Myers first graced our screens, there has been a total of nine sequels in the now iconic franchise. The latest offering, directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express), ignores the previous timeline and acts as a direct sequel to the 1978 original with Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode.
Michael Myers is back to his murderous best in the 2018 sequel // UniversalPictures.ie
The film opens with a pair of investigative journalists approaching Myers at the mental rehabilitation facility he’s been held in for the past four decades. Following a chilling scene in the prison, a gruesome series of events free him, which subsequently results in Myers donning the iconic mask.
Following years of paranoia, predicting Myers’ eventual return, Laurie has spent her time fortifying her house into some sort of bunker while raising – and training – her daughter Karen (Judy Greer), in preparation for the jumpsuit-clad killer.
Growing tired of her mother’s actions, Karen sets off to live a normal life with husband Ray (Toby Huss) and daughter Karen (Allyson Matichak), away from the memory of Myers and his murderous rampage 40 years ago.
What follows is a gory, unnerving, and often, surprisingly charming slasher film. It has everything the viewer would want and expect from Myers, including gruesome deaths, spine-tingling tension and a grandstand finish.
Halloween delivers on all fronts, in a time when horror titles have become more silly than scary, all the while paying homage to John Carpenter’s 1978 classic that originally gained the adoration of audiences worldwide.
Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her legendary role as Laurie, and couldn’t wait to correct the distorted Halloween timeline // UniversalPictures.ie
With Halloween swiftly approaching, Netflix, much to the delight of horror fans, has continued to update its library with films and TV shows from the ghastly genre.
The latest addition, The Haunting of Hill House, has already generated a bevy of impressive reviews, with some reaching 91% amongst film critics on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a 5/5 rating on Roger Ebert. The ladbible even somewhat flimsily claimed that the show “has proven so scary that people are saying they’ve been vomiting, close to passing out and unable to sleep.” The show itself has proven that to be successful, it’s rewarding to take a different approach to the horror genre.
Director Mike Flanagan has taken the same approach that successful modern day horror films (Get Out, Hereditary, The Babadook) have gone with, focusing on the human trauma and skeletons in the closet, instead of cheap scares and gore, though that is not to say the show doesn’t stray away from them entirely.
Netflix’s adaptation of the horror classic has truly set the tone for this year’s festivities // Netflix
Featuring ten episodes, all differing in length, the show centres around a family who have moved into an isolated house, with the intention of doing it up and selling it for a profit. It doesn’t take long for things to go horribly wrong, as they all begin to be individually affected by malevolent forces that dwell within.
The family consists of five young children and two parents, with the show jumping back and forth in time, elaborating on the impact the events had on them.
What is most effective about the show, however, is the themes that it explores. Inherited mental illness, addiction, and generational trauma are right at the forefront of the series. The first episode acts as the building block for the show, introducing the plot, characters, and how close they are, both in the past and present. The show then uses five episodes, each dedicated to a member of the Crain family, and how their own unique experience has haunted them.
What truly stands out about The Haunting of Hill House is its production. Some of the shots linking past and present are truly outstanding and episode six epitomises this, with a magnificent marriage of beautiful shots and masterful acting on show.
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