Random Creepy Scene # 72: Darby O’Gill & the Little People

In the aftermath of St Patrick’s Day I thought it appropriate to feature what is perhaps one of the all time creepiest moments ever in a film about leprechauns. Produced by Disney and starring a young Sean Connery, Darby O’Gill & the Little People follows the exploits of amiable town drunk Darby O’Gill (Albert Sharpe) and his attempts to outwit the King of the Leprechauns in order to obtain his fabled gold. Well, his attempts were hilarious when I was about 7 or 8 and was too young to realise the underlying pathos of this lonely old social outcast’s situation: spinning tales of the supernatural and the fantastic to try and win his fellow villagers’ admiration and acceptance.

Anyway, Darby works as a grounds keeper for an affluent family on the outskirts of the village. Because he spends most of his time in the pub, neglecting not only his work but also his daughter Katie (Janet Munro), his landlord understandably decides to hire Sean Connery to replace him. When Katie finds out that her father has fucked up once again, she storms off in a moment of desperation, slips and falls on the cliffs and badly injures herself. It is at this point that one of the creepiest moments in a film about leprechauns occurs, and subsequently provides sustenance for nightmares all over the Emerald Isle: a spectral banshee materialises in an ominous storm over the cliffs and slowly floats towards Katie with the intent of claiming her soul… The banshee is all eerily billowing cloak and hair, and her face is obscured as she weeps into her hands…


Up until now the film was typical Disney fair: all dancing fairies and comical town drunks, however the suddenness with which it shifts tone is alarming, with barely enough time to thrust your hands over your eyes to avoid seeing the ever advancing banshee. Forget the overrated Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, this creepy character induces enough chills to freeze the tears of a distraught 7 year old. If that wasn’t scary enough, along comes a death coach to claim poor old Darby, who has finally decided to take some responsibility and offered to take his daughter’s place in the afterlife. In traditional Irish folklore, the death coach, or cóiste-bodhar, is driven by a ‘dullahan’ (that’s headless horseman to you and I). And this is Disney! Fear not though, there is a happy ending involving Sean Connery singing 'Pretty Irish Girl.' 

Popular posts from this blog

Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010)

Image
Dir. Andy de Emmony After placing his senile wife in a care home, retired astronomer James Parkin (John Hurt) heads for the coast to revisit their ‘old haunts’, including the now out-of-season hotel they honeymooned in. By day he is stalked along the windswept beaches by a spectral figure dressed in white, and by night he is terrorised by strange sounds and someone, or something, attempting to enter his room… In the 2000s BBC4 attempted to reignite the old Ghost Story at Christmas tradition by adapting MR James’s A View from a Hill (2005) and Number 13 (2006). This series was seemingly short lived though, as their next outing wasn’t until 2010, and an unusual reinterpretation of James’s classic chiller Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad . While de Emmony’s direction captures the atmosphere and tone of James very well, this film differs significantly from other adaptations, including Jonathan Miller’s supremely unsettling 1968 take . Neil Cross’s screenplay only incorpo...
Read more

Halloween: Resurrection

Image
2002 Dir. Rick Rosenthal Four years after mistakenly killing a man she thought to be her brother (really, Dimension Films? Really ?), long-suffering Laurie Strode is eventually hunted down by her not really dead actual brother, crazier-than-bat-shit Michael Myers, and murderlised. Making his way back home to Haddonfield, Myers discovers the crew of an online reality show has taken over his house (!) to broadcast a Halloween special featuring a group of dumb-fuck teenagers dared to spend the night in the house of ill-repute. Naturally he goes on yet another killing spree. And it's all caught on camera and broadcast online for other dumb-fuck teenagers to watch. Yes, all of this actually really happens. It really fucking happens. Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later did not warrant a sequel. It was intended not only as a twentieth anniversary celebration of John Carpenter's classic chiller , but as a way to draw the series to a close, with its original heroine finally co...
Read more

Caveat (2020)

Image
Isaac, a brooding drifter suffering from memory loss, agrees to look after Olga, the niece of his acquaintance Moe. A troubled woman prone to bouts of catatonia, Olga lives in an old, ramshackle house on an isolated island in the middle of a dark lake. Isaac agrees to wear a chained harness that prevents him from going into certain rooms. He gradually comes to learn of the unsettling history of the house and the unquiet dead it harbours within its walls... Written and directed by Damian McCarthy,  Caveat  is steeped in the Gothic tradition. With distinct echoes of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, it is ripe with a lingering atmosphere of morbidity and decay. McCarthy's screenplay toys with themes such as psychological rot, dark family secrets, and the aftermath of unspeakable violence and cruelty. The story unfolds within the creepy confines of the lonely, mouldy house, with myriad forbidden rooms, hidden passageways and concealed bloody secrets. The house itself is cut off from c...
Read more