Behind the Couch

Written and directed by Lee Cronin, and co-written by Stephen Shields, The Hole in the Ground tells of lone parent Sarah (Seána Kerslake), who, after relocating with her young son Chris (James Quinn Markey) to an isolated house beside a vast forest in rural Ireland, begins to suspect he has been abducted and replaced by an otherworldly imposter: a faerie changeling.  While Cronin’s film begins as so many horror films do, with a family moving into an old, creaky house beside a deep, dark forest, it soon becomes apparent that his studied approach, attention to characterisation and mining of creepy Irish folklore will take us deeper into the dark than most. Cronin draws us slowly into the story: Sarah and Chris struggling to settle in their new home; Sarah taking medication for anxiety, and the suggestion she’s escaped from an abusive relationship; the discovery of a massive sink hole in the forest beside the house; an older neighbour who claims faeries abducted her own son years bef...

Ghouls on Film is a Belfast-based feminist horror zine ‘for scream queens of all genders’, the contents of which aim to investigate the world of horror from a feminist perspective, ‘exploring how women can find agency in a genre that is traditionally male-dominated.’ Editor Isabella Koban, the founder and programmer of the local film society the zine takes its name from, organises screenings and events in the Black Box (an arts and performance space in Belfast's Cathedral Quarter). These events typically showcase underrepresented voices within the horror genre, both onscreen and from behind the camera, and contributors to the zine are largely comprised of women and non-binary folk. The first issue features an in-depth essay on the classic Stephen King adaptation Carrie (1976), a think-piece on horror networking events, book recommendations from Victoria Brown - founder of the Readers in the Rue Morgue horror book club - and an interview with Belfast drag artist King Phisher. Inspi...

When her daughter goes missing after venturing into the cellar of their new home, Kiera (Elisha Cuthbert) uncovers terrifying secrets concerning the history of their house and the diabolical practices of its previous inhabitant… Written and directed by Brendan Muldowney, The Cellar is based on his spine-chilling short film The Ten Steps (2004), which depicts a young girl’s haunting descent into the cellar of her home during a power-cut. This moment comes at the beginning of The Cellar , and from here Muldowney opens out the story to follow the mother’s frantic search and unearthing of the sinister history of the house. With elements of HP Lovecraft’s Dreams in the Witch House and William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderlands, The Cellar is an immensely creepy, atmospheric work. It deviates from run of the mill haunted house narratives with its intriguing use of occult mysticism and mathematical alchemy to twist the laws of time and space. Spoiler alert: the previous owner of t...

After the tragic death of their baby daughter, Martha and Tomas (Samantha Morton and Steven Mackintosh) relocate from London to the tiny coastal village in rural Ireland where Tomas was born. They move into his old family home, a small cottage overlooking the Atlantic. When their neighbours perish in a fire, the couple take in their orphaned daughter Daisy, a young autistic girl with complex learning needs. Some of the locals believe Daisy is a faerie changeling, and when several strange accidents and deaths occur in the area, fear takes root within the community, further ostracising Daisy and driving apart Martha and Tomas. Written by Lauren Mackenzie and directed by Aisling Walsh,  The Daisy Chain  is a quietly haunting story of grief, otherness and the contagion of fear. It shares much in common with recent Irish horror titles, such as Aislínn Clarke’s  Fréwaka , with its ambiguous use of folkloric beings, social commentary regarding rural communities left in the dust ...