Behind the Couch

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Paul Duane, All You Need Is Death follows two underground musicologists, Anna and Aleks, as they travel the backroads of Ireland recording and collecting traditional folk songs. Things take a turn for the sinister when they hear about a woman in County Armagh who can sing them an ancient song, never recorded or transcribed, but passed down through generations of women. Sung in a language older than Irish, the song unleashes an otherworldly force and Anna and Aleks find themselves navigating a shady realm of arcane lore and forbidden knowledge. With its tantalising premise involving the recording of ancient folk songs, and shadowy black markets in which eccentric collectors vie for the rarest recordings, All You Need Is Death is a darkly beguiling folk horror. The story unfolds in rural, backwoods pubs and small farmhouses, gradually straying into strange hinterlands and creepy urban edgelands of disused industrial spaces. The contemporaneou...

When her missing mother reappears, teenaged Char begins to suspect she is an otherworldly imposter. Written and directed by Irish filmmaker Kate Dolan, You Are Not My Mother taps into some truly primal fears – parental abandonment, being harmed by those meant to protect us, and being ostracised from our community. The carefully nuanced screenplay ensures an enthralling ambiguity throughout. Char’s mother has a history of depression and mental health issues – are the changes she exhibits due to her ill health? Her medication? Or something more unnatural ? Dolan’s writing and direction are bolstered by incredibly strong, compelling performances, particularly from Hazel Doupe as Char and Carolyn Bracken as her mother Angela. Char is a subdued, quiet girl with no friends. Doupe’s ability to convey so much internalised emotion, worry and pain is especially captivating. Bracken also delivers a memorably striking performance, the physical aspects of which create a sense of unease and eventu...

Magheralin, from the Irish Machaire Lainne , meaning "Plain of the Church", is a tiny village and civil parish in County Down, Northern Ireland. In the centre of the village an ancient stone tower casts its shadow over an equally ancient graveyard. The church that originally stood on this site was identified with Lann Ronan, or the Church of Ian, and is cited in the taxation of Pope Nicholas of 1306 - although no traces of the medieval structure remain today. In 1400 a new church was built incorporating parts of the previous building, and in 1442 a stone tower was added. By 1657 however, the church was described as being in a state of decay and ruin, and was later completely rebuilt along with the existing tower, which still stretches out of the earth and above the olden trees surrounding it. The practice of burying the dead within the church itself was stopped in 1773, but damage to the structure had already been done. In 1839 the decision to build a new church was take...

2009 Dir. Brett Anstey Prompted by the arrival of a mysterious package from her terminally ill grandmother, Claire drags her reluctant new boyfriend off to meet her family at their remote country home where she hopes she will discover the motivations behind the unexpected gift. Things go well until Claire’s grandmother begins rambling on about a female spirit she is expecting to come in the night to escort her body into the afterlife. That night, as a violent thunderstorm rocks the house, the family is awoken by a succession of piercing, otherworldly shrieks, which prove to be the cries of a banshee. As the terrifying sounds ring out, the dead are summoned to rise again, so beginning a waking nightmare for Claire and her family as the banshee and her army of the undead unleash their fury upon the living. The figure of the banshee in traditional Irish folklore is a tragic, sorrowful one, but also a terrifying one. She is said to appear mournfully wailing near the house of someone...