Rating: D+
Dir: Robert Wynne-Simmons
Star: Mary Ryan, Mick Lally, Don Foley, Tom Jordan
This is definitely fringe in terms of being folk horror. It may be closer to folk fantasy, but is also a rural drama, unfolding in 1810 Ireland. Where mud is cheap, apparently. Indeed, if it reminded me of anything in the early going, it might be Tess, which came out three years earlier. Well, if Tess Durbeyfield was… um, let’s use the word “daft”, as the film does. Put it this way: when Maura (Ryan) runs, she flails, limbs flying like she was a helicopter making an emergency landing. She’s one of three daughters belonging to widower Hugh O’Donnell (Foley), whom he wants to marry off – this is a bit of a lost cause with regard to Maura.
There’s a local legend of Scarf Michael, a supernatural fiddler, whose appearance is supposed to foretell doom for whoever hears him play. He shows up at the wedding of Maura’s sister, Janey, causing concern to all in attendance. Except for Maura, at least, who senses a kindred spirit in this mythical figure, an outsider just as she is. She meets Michael (Lally), and spends the night – platonically – with him in a local graveyard. When word of this gets out, her father is less than impressed. The local villagers are not happy either, subsequently blaming Maura for any and all ills which might befall them. Given the movie takes place just as the Great Famine was kicking off, this is a potentially significant problem for her.
The majority of this is grounded in reality, to the point it’s rolling around in the muck of the Irish countryside. Frankly, there are elements which I just was unable to take seriously, like the people wandering around with wicker baskets on their heads (top). It looked kinda silly in Shogun Assassin, and isn’t much better here. Though I think the last vestige of hope for me taking this seriously, left the building when the Father Ted-looking motherfucker (Farrell) showed up. Or maybe it was The Bit With the Goat, surely an influence on Robert Eggers in The VVitch. All told, if you said to me this was a modern film, aping and parodying the tropes of folk horror, I might well believe you.
Wynne-Simmons was also responsible for the script of Blood on Satan’s Claw, though Outcasts was his sole feature in the director’s chair. I think that lack of experience shows, with a film I found to be long on grubby rural atmosphere, and short on much else. Ryan’s performance does help salvage it, but didn’t feel the change in tone for the final act was successful. There are odd moments that work. Michael, who tells Maura he sleeps in cemeteries “for the company,” then reveals, “Folks have it all wrong. When people die, we mourn a little, keen a little – and then get frightened stupid in case they return.” I think more of him, and less of daft Maura, might have been the way to go.