keithhmessenger

Badged in various places as a comedy-horror in the vein of Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead, writer-director Chris Baugh's 2020 film only raised the odd titter (the 'comedy' being the main reason I watched the film) from this viewer. As a backdrop for a vampire film, Ireland is an interesting setting, given (we are told) that Dracula author Bram Stoker was inspired by the local legend of the 'bloodthirsty' Abhartach, the figure having been buried beneath a local stone cairn (a 'theory' that Jack Rowan's 'waster' and construction worker, Eugene Moffat, is using as the basis for a 'tourist trap scam'). The film's set-up of an imminent curse (and its gory aftereffects) is completed as Eugene, as part of his job building a local bypass, intends to destroy the cairn, thereby setting him against John Lynch's landowner, George Bogue, who would lose much of his land.

Baugh's film is certainly low-budget - some of the early blood-letting sequences are noticeably shot in near darkness presumably to disguise the rudimentary special effects - even if much of the acting here is solid, particularly from Rowan and the always reliable Lynch. As things liven up - Bogue's son having died in tragic circumstances, but now making a 'comeback', as does the hitherto interred Abhartach - the pace is also maintained by a memorable rock-based soundtrack (Eddie Cochran's C'mon Everybody being used to particularly amusing effect). The film's second half follows a fairly well-established horror genre path but, even if the special effects are stepped up somewhat, I was still holding out (forlornly) for more laugh out loud moments.