FAQ

Early on in the film, Camelia (Yalda Shahidi) tries to warn Kian (Nigel Brennan) about the futility of revenge by quoting Emily Brontë; "Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies." As several characters set out to take revenge during the course of the film, they become the symbolic "spears" of the story.

38 min 33 sec - 'Pixelate' by Shaefri

50 min 6 sec - 'Rabbit with Hat' by Exit: Pursued by a Bear

1 hr 10 min 21 sec - 'Counterfeit' by Le Groupe Fantastique

1hr 18 min 17 sec - 'Is This Ready?' by Sleep Thieves

People often refer to Donegal as "the forgotten county." The most northerly county on the island, it's not in Northern Ireland. And economically, it neither benefited nor had the social drawbacks of the now deceased Celtic Tiger. Time and infrastructure has stood still in this, the least commercialized part of Ireland. Consequentially, emigration has had a major effect on the county.

Certainly not on the consumer market at the time of filming. Drones would be too noisy to silently enter and survey a house without being noticed by the occupants. All of the drone sounds were replaced in post production with those of a portable cooling fan. Similarly, its thermal vision capabilities were made up for the film.

Only one, which was to have happened just before Vadik (Thomas Sharkey) was kidnapped. It featured Cormac (Aidan O'Sullivan) observing an intoxicated young man while waiting in the car with Jeff (Bobby Calloway) and observing in a despondent manner how many people today need a "cause" or direction. The scene was dropped once the kidnap sequence became a montage set to music and this scene would have broken the flow of it.

Neo-noir, is a genre of films that use the visual style and themes of classic film noir (French: "dark film") but add a modern sensibility. Classic film noir thrived in the 1940s and '50s. The genre was characterized by dark stylized cinematography and a pessimistic mood, perhaps reflecting the uncertainty of the postwar era. Plots typically featured troubled cynical characters involved in the underworld. The earliest neo-noirs came in the decades after, typically in the 1960s and '70s with films such as Chinatown (1974). Other hallmarks of the genre are a sinister or paranoid atmosphere, corruption, double crossing and no clear separation between 'good' and 'bad' characters. Spears adheres closely to these Neo-Noir conventions. Other examples include Drive (2011), Thief (1981), The Last Seduction (1994) and Blade Runner (1982).

Other films include Hannibal (2001), Obsession (1976), Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) and A Room with a View (1985).