Childer (2016)


Nominated for Best International Short at the International Women in Horror Festival and the Nightmares Film Festival, Childer (an Irish colloquial word for children) is written and directed by Aislínn Clarke (The Devil’s Doorway, 2018). It tells of Mary (Dorothy Duffy), an introverted single mother, who suspects she and her young son are being stalked by feral children living in the woods surrounding her home. She spends her days obsessively cleaning, trying to maintain order, and preventing her son from playing with the forest-dwelling children.

Clarke’s screenplay explores ideas concerning parenthood, obsession, loneliness, and mental illness. The spectre of Shirley Jackson drifts throughout proceedings as domestic, homey spaces become veiled in quiet menace and the seeming innocence of childhood takes on sinister qualities. The beautiful photography by Ryan Kernaghan and art direction by Claire Fox help imbue the story with an eerie fairy tale quality: the little house, neat and ordered, surrounded by forbidding woods, and the gradual encroachment of the woods - and whatever forces may reside there - into Mary’s home in the form of leaves, branches and dirt. Mary’s constant reminders to Mark (Luke Walford) to stay away from the other children feel like a foreboding harbinger. Certain images, such as the wayward vine growing out of the plughole in the bath, and the well-tended little cabbage patch at the bottom of the garden, reflect Mary’s feelings of being overwhelmed, losing control. Her anxiety is manifested in the repetitive tasks she conducts to attempt to provide herself with a sense of order. She is plagued by dark botanical dreams and intrusive unwelcome thoughts of uncleanliness: the moment she watches in frozen horror as a drop of egg yolk drips off her son’s piece of toast onto the kitchen table is filled with tension. Events culminate on Halloween night as young Mark dresses as a ghost and disobeys Mary, venturing into the dark woods to play with the other children, the identities of whom are hinted at in an exceptionally dark revelation…

With striking imagery, dark humour, nods to fairy tales, folklore, the Female Gothic and folk horror, Clarke’s short film is a haunting meditation on the horrors of parenthood (and indeed childhood) and what happens when overprotectiveness and the longing for (unattainable) perfection and second chances become bloodied obsession. 

You can watch Childer here. 

Popular posts from this blog

The Soul Eater (2024)

Image
Adapted from Alexis Laipsker’s novel, and written by Annelyse Batrel and Ludovic Lefebvre, The Soul Eater is the latest offering from Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, who burst onto the scene with the infamous Inside (2007), a major title in the New French Extremity wave at the turn of the 21st century. Their work since, including blistering titles such as Livid (2011), Among the Living (2014) and The Deep House (2021), has demonstrated their willingness to push boundaries and step outside of convention. Theirs is a wholly distinctive approach to genre. Part gripping police procedural, part Gallic Gothic shocker - with shadowy traces of Folk Horror present in some striking imagery - The Soul Eater follows two detectives who are sent to the sleepy French mountain town of Roquenoir. Elizabeth Guardiano (Virginie Ledoyen), an inspector in the National Police, is investigating a series of gruesome murder-suicides, and Franck de Rolan (Paul Hamy), a cop from the other French polic
Read more

Experiment IV – Kate Bush

Image
A couple of years back I wrote a piece about the influence of horror cinema and literature on the music of Kate Bush. I recently acquired The Whole Story , a ‘best of’ compilation released by Kate in 1986, and have since become rather ‘obsessed’ with one of the tracks featured on it: Experiment IV . Said track was written especially for the compilation and released to promote it. Along with the accompanying video it once again demonstrates Kate Bush’s singular vision as a musician, an artist - and a lover of horror. Taking the ‘storyline’ from the song quite literally, the video tells of a top secret and highly dubious government experiment to create a sound that can kill. That sound is, of course , portrayed by Kate in the video – initially as an alluring siren-like wraith (underpinning the notion of deadly music at the heart of the song; sirens lured seamen to watery graves by bewitching them with their irresistible but deadly voices), and then as a nightmarish spectre reminiscen
Read more

Beware the Autumn People...

Image
Having just finished reading Ray Bradbury’s creepy carnival-based Something Wicked This Way Comes , I was incredibly struck by his vivid, immensely atmospheric prose; particularly the following passage, which proved to be one of the most evocative of the whole novel. It appears late in the story, as Charles Halloway is talking to his young son Will about the duel nature of mankind. He is attempting to explain the existence of evil in the world, and warn his son about the kind of people who have completely succumbed to their darkest desires; so much so they’ve been utterly consumed by them. He recalls an old religious tract written by Pastor Newgate Phillips in which these individuals are referred to as 'Autumn People'...  “For these beings, fall is ever the normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What spea
Read more