Be afraid, be very afraid... Kevin Coyne introduces this year's installment of IFI Horrorthon, the Irish Film Institute's popular festival devoted to the best, bloodiest and downright bonkers in new and classic horror cinema...
There is an Irish predilection for horror. Tales of the púca and the banshee are still told to children by flickering firelight, in the tradition of the seanchaí. Oscar Wilde's 1891 novel-length version of The Picture Of Dorian Gray has proven as ageless as the titular character, while the tale of the Dearg-Due found new interpretation in J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872) and, most famously of all, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). The literary tradition continued into the twentieth century with the influential writings of Lord Dunsany and is still in evidence today in elements of Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant series.
Irish filmmakers have similarly been lured by what lurks in the shadows. Little-seen films such as The Outcasts (Robert Wynne-Simmons, 1982), recently meticulously restored and released by the IFI Irish Film Archive, have been brought to light. Neil Jordan, one of our most acclaimed directors, has visited the genre a number of times, most notably in The Company Of Wolves (1984) and his own explorations of the vampire myth in Interview With The Vampire (1994) and Byzantium (2012).
Films by contemporary directors including Aislinn Clarke (The Devil's Doorway, 2018; Fréwaka, 2024) and Paul Duane (All You Need Is Death, 2023) have played to international acclaim, while both Kate Dolan (You Are Not My Mother, 2021) and Lee Cronin (The Hole In The Ground, 2019) are now working with Blumhouse Productions, the most powerful and prestigious horror outfit in operation today. Cronin has already made a significant splash with the most recent instalment in the legendary Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Rise (2023). The growing movement of Irish language cinema this year saw the first appearance of horror films in our native language, Clarke’s Fréwaka and John Farrelly’s An Taibhse.
Now in its third decade, the IFI Horrorthon celebrates this proud tradition by showcasing the best of national and international horror films both new and old. Over its lifetime, the festival has given Irish premieres to some of the genre’s most seminal recent films, including The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014), What We Do In The Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi, 2014), The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015), Train To Busan (Sang-ho Yeon, 2016), and Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino, 2018). Guests have ranged from Michael Biehn and Frank Henenlotter to John Connolly and Sir Christopher Frayling.
Like all long-running events, the festival mutates from year to year. This year, there are more classic titles than have featured for quite some time, including the rarely-screened TV version of John Carpenter’s evergreen Halloween (1978), Antonia Bird’s Ravenous (1999), and a selection of classic Japanese horror films of the '90s and noughties, including Ring (1998). The festival is very pleased to welcome John Farrelly and members of cast and crew to present the aforementioned An Taibhse, and fellow Irish filmmaker Zoe Kavanagh for closing film Demon Hunter: Time 2 Kill.
The centrepiece of this year’s event is a collaboration with the DCC Bram Stoker Festival and Slaughterhouse on Saturday, October 26th, which will feature a directors’ masterclass with Kate Dolan and Lee Cronin, a special event with storytelling platform Seanchoíche on the theme of ‘The Horror Within’, and an anniversary screening of Mary Harron’s Pet Sematary (1989).
With such a storied past behind it, the IFI Horrorthon stands as evidence of Irish audiences’ ongoing love affair with the dark delights offered by horror films, and this year’s festival welcomes regulars and newcomers alike to join us in the shadows.
The IFI Horrorthon runs from October 24th - 28th - find out more here.
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