Irish Film Festival – Boys from County Hell

county hellDirector Chris Baugh
Starring Jack Rowan, Nigel O’Neill, Louisa Harland
Rated M
Score 6/6

Set in Six Mile Hill, a fictional backwater town, whose only claim to fame is that Bram Stoker stayed there once and based Dracula on the local legend of Abhartach. When Abhartach is awakened after the cairn over his remains is demolished due to the preparation for bypass already unpopular with the locals, the construction team that demolished the cairn must set out to make it right.

Okay, if you have not seen a movie that is being screened as part of a film festival either at a cinema or online, you should, they are a lot of fun. Simply because you’ll be exposed to how other countries approach telling stories, like a vampire movie or as the creature is referred to in this movie the Abhartach. If you do some research about Abhartach you will find out that it has been suggested by at least one scholar, the Abhartach is a possible alternative inspiration for Dracula.
I have said it in the past and I will say it again, but I am not the biggest fan of horror movies. Now to be clear I will watch them but when I am deciding on a movie to watch I generally don’t seek out a horror movie. This is the most memorable horror movies that I have seen in recent years. Now even with more then a few ‘what the fuck?’ moments this comes across as a light horror especially if you compare it to movies directed by Neil Marshall, it was also good to see that this did appear to be inspired by Joss Wheedon or any other on screen vampire that I have seen considering that this Abhartach drank blood through its proximity to people .
Surprise, surprise I had never come across anybody cast in Boys from County Hell, I loved Jack Rowan’s and Louisa Harland’s performances. I thought the scene with the Canadian tourists was hilarious. Michael Hough had a great onscreen presence, and I loved the father/son dynamic between Nigel O’Neill and Jack Rowan. It was also good to see that nobody fell into the trope of being used as the screamer.

Irish Film Festival Logo

 



  1 comment for “Irish Film Festival – Boys from County Hell

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.