Behind the Couch

Written and directed by Olivia Rose Beatty, Lived Once Buried Twice: The Legend of Margorie McCall  (2025) is a morbidly humorous short film which brings to life an old County Armagh folk tale about premature burial. It marks the directorial debut of Beatty, who grew up in Lurgan – the town where the tale originates. As the old yarn goes, some time in the 18th century a woman named Margorie McCall, who lived and worked in Lurgan, died after a brief fever. During her wake, mourners tried in vain to remove her wedding ring. Margorie was buried in Shankill Graveyard and, that very same night, was exhumed by robbers who had heard she was buried with her precious wedding ring. Also unable to remove the ring, the desperate ghouls tried to cut off Margorie’s finger. As soon as they began cutting, and the blood began flowing, Margorie awakened with an unearthly scream. Having scared off the graverobbers, Margorie proceeded to make her way home and give her husband the shock of his life... ...

Written and directed by Olivia Rose Beatty, this short film brings to life a spooky old folk tale from my hometown, Lurgan, County Armagh*. According to local legend, poor Margorie McCall died after a brief fever. At her wake there was much commotion concerning her wedding ring. Many of the mourners tried in vain to prise it from her finger, perhaps anticipating that grave robbers might attempt to steal it. Margorie was buried in Shankill Graveyard, and sure enough that very same night, her body was exhumed by robbers after her precious ring. Also unable to remove the ring, the ghouls tried to cut off Margorie’s finger, and as soon as they began cutting and the blood began to flow, Margorie awoke with an unearthly scream… Her headstone still stands in Shankill Graveyard to this day, and it bears the eerie inscription, 'Margorie McCall: Lived Once, Buried Twice.' This old tale has always been ripe for a filmic adaptation, and Beatty, in her directorial debut, has created a stri...

When Flavia is enrolled at a new school she is befriended by Verónica, an unpopular orphan who lives with her ailing grandmother and whose nanny regales her with tales of witches, fairies and spells. What begins as an innocent enough friendship soon turns coercive, as Verónica confides to Flavia that she is a witch in disguise, making Flavia a reluctant accomplice in several acts of wickedness. As the line between what is real and what is imagined begins to blur, Flavia descends into a terrifying spiral of magic, manipulation, petty jealousy, and murder. Written and directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada, and part of a rich tradition of Mexican Gothic horror cinema - which includes such titles as The Witch’s Mirror (1962) and The Curse of the Crying Woman (1961) -  Poison for the Fairies unfurls as a complex study of the fraught and intense friendship between two impressionable girls whose dabbling in witchcraft and descent into occultism leads to tragedy. While it quite comfortably...

Written and directed by Emilie Blichfeldt, The Ugly Stepsister filters the fairy tale of Cinderella through a feminist body-horror lens to lambast the impossible standards women are held to – both in this world and in folkloric fantasy worlds of make-believe. It follows Elvira (Lea Myren), a shy, awkward young woman who is driven by her mother, societal pressures, and by jealousy of her beautiful stepsister, to undergo gruesome cosmetic surgeries to make herself beautiful, win the heart of the prince and marry into wealth. Blichfeldt has created a daring work that blasts open the misogyny inherent in many literary fairy tales, revealing them to be a means of containing and controlling young women. Her screenplay ensures audiences glimpse the full horror of how glass slippers become glass ceilings, as female ambitions are forcibly limited, dreams corralled and bodies cruelly transformed. The film is laced with blood-dark humour as Blichfeldt sets about satirising and carving up patriar...

Directed by Leigh Whannell, Wolf Man is a reboot of the 1940s classic The Wolf Man , starring Lon Chaney Jr. It tells of a family stranded at a remote forest cabin who are attacked by a werewolf. As it prowls around outside the cabin, they face another deadly threat from within, as the wounded father begins to transform into a slathering beast...  Throughout folklore, literature and cinema, the figure of the werewolf has been used to explore ideas of mankind's innate savagery; the unleashing of an inner beast, primitive, instinctual, stripped of logic and reason, unshackled from centuries of civilisation and societal conformity. Many of the conventions of the werewolf film were established by Hollywood films: the use of silver to destroy the werewolf, the influence of the full moon on transformation, and the contagious nature of lycanthropy. Aside from the latter, Whannell's film dispenses with these conventions and attempts to establish a sense of realism. While the screenpla...

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...

1815. Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald, two orphaned teenaged sisters, seek refuge at an isolated trading fort in the snowy Canadian wilderness. They soon learn that the fort is under siege from werewolves lurking in the surrounding woods. After Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) is attacked and bitten by the lycanthropic son of the fort's factor, she begins to change. Her sister Brigitte (Emily Perkins) seeks a cure while trying to keep them both safe from the men in the fort, whose mistrust of the sisters is stoked by a bloodthirsty, wrathful minister. Directed by Grant Harvey, Ginger Snaps Back is a period piece (no pun intended) and a prequel to Ginger Snaps (2000), the story of a young woman who, on the night she first menstruates, is attacked by a werewolf and begins to transform into a monster. It was followed by  Ginger Snaps Unleashed (2004), which follows the plight of Ginger's sister, Brigitte, as she struggles to find a cure for her own latent lycanthropy. Written by Chr...

Written and directed by Jennifer Dick, and adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Gothic novella, Jekyll and Hyde is the latest production from Glasgow based theatre company, Bard in the Botanics. It tells of Gabriel Utterson, a solicitor who investigates a series of strange, horrifying occurrences involving the renowned Dr Henry Jekyll, and a murderous brute named Edward Hyde. Utterson eventually discovers that the two men are one and the same, as Jekyll's primal, violent urges are made flesh in the form of Hyde. Performed by a cast of three against the backdrop of the stunning Kibble Palace, an ornate Victorian glasshouse in Glasgow's botanical gardens, Jekyll and Hyde stars Stephanie McGregor as Gabriel Utterson, Adam Donaldson as Henry Jekyll, and Sam Stopford as Edward Hyde. As Utterson, McGregor guides us through the story, remaining an anchor throughout, as her investigations eventually lead to the horrifying truth about her friend Dr Jekyll. The chemistry betwe...

Written and directed by Romola Garai, Amulet tells of a troubled, displaced ex-soldier who is offered a place to stay at a decrepit old house in London, inhabited only by a young woman and her dying mother (who resides in the attic, no less). Before long, he begins to suspect something sinister is afoot... Flirting with various tropes from demonic possession and haunted house films (warnings to stay out of the attic, things heard moving in the walls, horrifying discoveries in the decaying plumbing), Garai masterfully sets the scene and creates a portentous, gloomy atmosphere before eventually lifting the curtain to reveal a truly original and terrifying fable of feminist revenge. With its exploration of forbidden spaces, depictions of the monstrous in its myriad forms and reflections on trauma, abuse and gender, Amulet is a highly unsettling and atmospheric work that wields a strange, undeniable power. Throughout, Garai maintains an insidiously creepy approach, her deliberate directi...

With a truly uncommon approach to the figure of the werewolf, The Cursed is a mean and moody shocker with a haunting, weirdly lyrical undertow. After their father, a cold-hearted land baron, ruthlessly slaughters a camp of Romani who staked a claim to his land, young Charlotte and Edward begin to have ominous dreams of a human scarecrow and silver teeth. The dreams draw them and other children from the nearby village to the site of the massacre, and soon after, Edward goes missing. The discovery of grisly remains attracts the attention of a grief-stricken pathologist (Boyd Holbrook), who suspects something supernatural is lurking in the surrounding forest and vows to hunt it down and destroy it. Head over to Eye for Film to read my full review. 

Co-written by Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan and British novelist Angela Carter, and based on several short stories from her collection, The Bloody Chamber , The Company of Wolves is a werewolf film quite unlike any other. A provocative reinterpretation of the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, it unravels as a feverish exploration of a young girl’s sexuality as she crosses the threshold into adulthood. It was Jordan’s second film, and his first foray into the realms of Gothic horror. Entwining metaphor with striking visuals and grisly effects, The Company of Wolves was released in the early Eighties, in the wake of The Howling and An American Werewolf in London ; it set itself apart from the pack, however, with its literary roots, feminist concerns and art-house execution. The folk tales it draws upon and the significance of oral storytelling itself are woven into the very fabric of the film. Its unusual narrative structure, which unfurls like a Chinese puzzle box, begins as a young girl,...

Written and directed by Mary Harron, and adapted from the YA novel by Rachel Klein, The Moth Diaries tells of Rebecca (Sarah Bolger), a teenager at an all-girls boarding school who begins to suspect that the new student, Ernessa (Lily Cole), is a vampire. Throughout, Harron re-works and updates many Gothic traditions and tropes, adding a rich depth to proceedings and evoking a suitably haunting atmosphere.  While the story can be read as an updated interpretation of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Gothic novella Carmilla (1872), Harron’s screenplay places first and foremost the ever-shifting relationships and dynamics between the group of friends. New girl Ernessa might be a vampire, but Harron doesn’t let that detract from the realigning allegiances between friends sparked by her arrival at the school. Ernessa serves as a catalyst, driving a wedge between best friends Rebecca and Lucy (Sarah Gadon). Harron’s script delves into the intensity and complexity of the friendships forged at the boar...

A dark revenge fantasy with echoes of Stephen King’s Carrie and Firestarter , Dark Touch tells of a young girl with terrifying powers that are conjured through pain and rage. When her parents die violently and in mysterious circumstances, Niamh (Missy Keating, who provides a truly compelling performance) is taken in by her neighbours whose own young daughter has recently died. Niamh insists her parents were killed when the house came alive, but authorities dismiss her claims and attribute the deaths to a violent home invasion. Before long though, her neighbours begin to sense that something unusual is now happening in their home, too.  The work of writer and director Marina de Van frequently explores themes such as the vulnerability of the flesh, body dysmorphia and psychological turmoil, and with Dark Touch , she explores the devastating effect of child abuse through the tropes of the evil/demon child sub-genre. Such films (including titles like The Bad Seed, Orphan, Village of ...

When Rose Nemser's (Odessa Young) husband attains a teaching assistant position at Bennington College, Vermont, the couple are invited to stay with Professor Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his wife, the infamous mystery and horror author Shirley Jackson (Elizabeth Moss), whose most recent short story 'The Lottery' is causing quite a stir. Before long, tensions mount within the house and Shirley begins work on a new novel about a missing girl...  Adapted by screenwriter Sarah Gubbins from Susan Scarf Merrell’s 2014 novel of the same name, Shirley is an unusual biopic that sidesteps the conventions of the form as it is more inspired by Jackson’s work than her actual life. Merrell’s novel, equal parts dark literary thriller and enthralling love letter to Shirley Jackson and her haunting body of work, is a fictionalised account of a period in Jackson’s life. Like the novel, this adaptation takes as much artistic licence as it perfectly evokes the atmosphere of Jackson’...

Adapted from Shirley Jackson's 1962 Gothic novel of the same name, director Stacie Passon's sophomore feature film tells of the intense relationship between two sisters who, along with their ailing uncle (Crispin Glover), live in a large, lonely house on a vast estate outside a small New England town. Several years prior, the older sister, Constance (Alexandra Daddario), was acquitted of the murder of her parents, by poisoning, and the sisters are shunned by the townspeople. When their estranged cousin Charles (Sebastian Stan) arrives unannounced for a short stay, his prying presence shatters the sisters' claustrophobic little world and threatens to unearth long buried family secrets. Admirers of Jackson's novel, and her literary work in general, will find much to appreciate here. The screenplay by Mark Kruger is a very faithful adaptation, and, true to the source material, its main themes also centre on isolation, familial dysfunction/disintegration and the perse...

A bronze statue of Frankenstein's Creature created by Geneva artist collective KLAT, not only represents the fictional character, but “the figure of the vagrant or the marginal.” Published in January 1818, Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic novel Frankenstein turns 200 years old this month. It tells of Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious young scientist whose highly unorthodox experiments create a living, sentient creature assembled from the parts of stolen human cadavers. Horrified by his creation, Victor rejects and abandons the creature, who eventually seeks revenge on his creator. Mary began writing what would become her debut novel when she was 18. Published several years later, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus became one of the cornerstones of Gothic literature. With its themes concerning the destructive pursuit of knowledge and dangerous ambition, morality regarding scientific/technological advancement, existentialism and societal isolation, Frankenstein continues to...