Irish folklore about the ‘other crowd’, or fairy folk, remains ripe for use by horror cinema. Far from our modern cultural understanding of fairies as Disneyfied, benign, pretty little entities, the Irish stories hang onto a notion of the little people as ambiguous at best – malevolent at worst. Their hill forts, their meeting places and their attempts at striking deals with mankind always seem to lead to a bad outcome – for us. Of course this can – and has – already led to great films. Sadly, Unwelcome (2022) isn’t amongst them. Its unclear tone and accumulating minor errors make it a difficult film to read, much less really enjoy; it tries to engineer a big shift a significant way in, but ultimately, it just cannot work by that point. It’s shot its bolt.
The film has a busy, rather blundering start which, to be fair, does establish what it maintains throughout. A woman, at first nameless, is sat on the toilet with a pregnancy test (and not for the first time; the sequence is repeated moments later). News of her pregnancy results in a minor flicker of curtailed masculinity from husband Jamie (Douglas Booth), as we’re about to see. The happy event also signposts to us that living in an urban area is immediately unpalatable; Jamie pops to the shops to get some celebratory alcohol-free Prosecco, has a minor run-in with some hoodies, and they follow him home, turning the film momentarily into a home invasion as they kick the door in and kick in both Jamie and Maya (Hannah John-Kamen, who is back in the jacks by then.)
Elsewhere, in rural Ireland: Jamie’s aunt dies and leaves them her house. After the shock of the home invasion and the violent attack, they’re glad to take it – though, this seems to have happened about, ooh, nine months later, so there’s a massive and unfilled narrative gap regarding how they got on with things until the new house became available. Anyway, they relocate, and local woman Niamh (Niamh Cusack) is on hand to explain to them that Jamie’s Aunt Maeve believed in the ‘old ways’. This means a daily blood sacrifice for some fairy creatures nicknamed the ‘Redcaps’; it can be some chopped liver, that’s fine, but something with a bit of blood in it is expected (hang on – daily?! That’s inflation for you.) Niamh says that she’s happy to take care of it; Maya demurs, on the basis that she’s unhappy about having anyone coming into her garden, and that she’ll do it.
Maya and Jamie get settled in, with Maya forgetting almost instantly about the blood sacrifice thing to go to the pub. With their priorities in such order, and with plenty of objectionable idiocy on display, you can feel more than happy that the Redcaps are going to come along, and are going to do something to these two; well, if they are left to go hungry on what seems like Day One, then it’s clear that these little folk are going to expect something in return. Factor in a family of anti-English, bullying roofers (headed up by Colm Meaney, who out-acts everyone here) threatening their own brand of home invasion, and the little folk may just end up involved sooner rather than later. Now, whatever could they want? What is being so heavily signposted from the opening seconds of the film, that it might turn up to carry a large share of the plot?
Excuse the somewhat sneering attitude, it’s nothing to be proud of, but it’s hard not to feel a little aggrieved when things are dragged under your nose so clumsily as they are here. There are big issues with this script, and as a result of the script, big issues with key characters. And so on. Douglas Booth comes off particularly badly, as Chris is given to hyperbole, awkwardness and unsuccessful, matey maxims; his deliberations on What Maketh a Man are not good. An experienced actor, he doesn’t seem wholly comfortable with this, and the well-handled physical aspects of his role can’t quite wash away these other issues. But the script overall is very wearing. Its humour is strained, and there is a lot of simplistic backfilling to bring the story together which doesn’t sound or feel convincing. It’s all just a little too serious to cross into overblown comedy – even when it finally tries – yet too trite to come together as a convincing horror. It’s a particular shame, as lots of the this film looks great, with outside shots nicely framed, lit and presented, and the more supernatural scenes evoking the uncanny rather well. There are a range of shots used, the music works well – then someone opens their mouth, and we’re back to square one.
It’s surprising that Northern Irish director Jon Wright – who directed the eminently enjoyable horror-comedy Grabbers a decade ago – has dredged up a rather unpleasant batch of Irish stereotypes here. The Whelan family with their thievery, lechery, laziness, multiple mentions of ‘Cromwell’ as shorthand for hatred of all English ‘c*nts’, I mean come on. The fake Celtic tattoos were advised by someone, too; do we need all of this? This is a British-funded project, though, so assumedly Irish viewers would have some issues with the story arc for other reasons. See also ‘Mama Bear’ Maya, who has at least one hand clamped to her extraordinarily massive pregnancy bump throughout the film. We also get to see her eating Marmite from a jar with her bare hands, because cravings. Rumours persist that pregnant women are in fact normal people, still capable of behaving normally. In horror films, they apparently can’t.
By the time Unwelcome finally seems to have decided on comedy – a mode which does, to be fair, work well – it’s too late. The film feels entrenched. The best way to have a good time with this film is, with hindsight, to determinedly treat it as a comedy from the very beginning, even when this means doing some work to make it fit. The creature design is excellent, the shooting style for these sequences ingenious. It’s just that the key components are not there, and can’t support the rest of the good ideas. Now, go and read some Eddie Lenihan. You’re welcome.
Unwelcome (2023) is available on Shudder from Friday, June 23rd.