The Top Ten Irish Horror Movies You Need To See This St. Patrick's Day! (RANT)

St. Patrick’s Day doesn’t typically bring to mind extraordinary great horror movies, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t! After all the bagpipes are put away and the bartender shouts, “Last Call,” the night doesn’t need to end. Grab that leftover corned beef and a piece of dry-ass soda bread, and sit yourself down for one of the following banger Irish horror films. This list aims to please with a little something for every horror fan. We’ve got Creature Features, Folklore, Aquatic Terror, Vampires, and more. Good luck with that hangover, and enjoy the show!

“Grabbers” is a 2012 creature feature horror comedy written by Kevin Lehane and directed by Joe Wright. It stars Richard Coyle, Ruth Bradley, Bronagh Gallagher, and Russell Tovey and was a co-production between Ireland and the U.K. Lovingly paying tribute to B-movie monsters run amok films of the ’50s and ’60s. The action occurs on a remote Irish island where a streaking ball of green light falls from the sky, releasing tentacled aliens that survive on blood and water. As they begin to kill the townsfolk, it’s discovered that anyone with a high level of alcohol in their blood is safe from attack. You can probably see where this is going, and you’re right. This is a funny, sweet, remarkably well-made, small-budget monster movie with much heart and even more whiskey.    

“A Dark Song” is a 2016 Welsh-Irish-British independent horror film written and directed by Liam Gavin, starring Steve Oram and Catherine Walker. This movie is a perfect pairing tonally with other Irish films like, “Oddity,” and “Caveat,” and thematically with 2023’s “From Black,” which, though not an Irish production, shares much with this film, including a bleak desperation that only intensifies as the movie progresses. This film centers around Sophia Howard, a grieving Mother desperate to evoke her guardian angel in order to ask for revenge on the kidnappers who took her son. So begins a months-long ritual with Occultist John Solomon, which is full of increasingly demanding tasks. I’ll leave it there because the magic of this film is the realistic depiction and consequences of performing a ritual that takes months to complete. You truly get the sense of tedium, terror, and anguish. This two-character set piece is devastatingly effective.

“Isolation” is a 2005 Irish science fiction horror film written and directed by Billy O'Brien and produced by Film Four and Lions Gate. This is a fun, nasty little piece of farmland terror with a fantastic cast, including John Lynch, Ruth Negga, Sean Harris, and Essie Davis. This film uses a quiet, rural setting to maximum effect as the cattle, being genetically manipulated by a pharmaceutical company to accelerate their growth, exhibit some nasty side effects. The kind that crawls up your leg and bites your wee-bits! This one is a bit of a slow burn, but once it gets going, it doesn’t stop until the last cow moos. What this movie does with the setting and atmosphere is remarkable. If you really want to maximize your rural dread, watch this alongside “Murrain,” a BBC production written by the renowned Nigel Kneale.

“Sea Fever,” a 2019 science fiction horror thriller film written and directed by Neasa Hardiman, stars Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott, and Connie Nielsen. Siobhan, a PhD student studying deep sea faunal behavioral patterns, joins the crew on the fishing trawler, Niamh Cinn Óir. The Coast Guard has told the Captain not to enter the exclusion zone but does so anyway to secure a massive catch. Once there, they run afoul of an undiscovered sea creature that has no plans to let the ship go. After an unfortunate infection, larvae, you read that right, larvae, start appearing in people’s eyes. It gets worse from there. “Alien” start, are justified and rightfully so, but “Sea Fever” is far from a rip-off; it’s a well-acted, great looking close quarters thriller that takes its time for fantastic character development, increasing the stakes and the foreboding sense of doom, as chaos escalates quickly. An intelligent, atmospheric creep-fest from start to finish.

“From the Dark” (2014) is the  follow-up to Conor McMahon's previous film “Stitches,” a fantastic Irish horror comedy that didn’t make the final cut for this countdown but should definitely be added to your TBW list. Niamh Algar and Stephen Cromwell star as a couple having a romantic holiday that has the colossal misfortune of getting stuck in the mud close to where a farmer has previously pulled a stake, a wooden stake, from the muddy bog he’s clearing for peat. If you know your vampire lore, you know what that means. Without giving anything away, let’s just say that finding sources of light in the Irish countryside turns out to be frustratingly difficult. Algar and Cromwell have great chemistry, and their early scenes before the mayhem are light and carefree, which is the perfect counterpoint for the intensity that comes later in the film. A small indie feature with a killer (literally) premise, “From the Dark,” does a lot with a little and deserves a larger audience. Give it a try.

“The Damned” (2024) isn’t entirely an Irish production, it shares that honor with the United Kingdom, Iceland, Belgium, and the United States, but the Celtic vibes run deep. Full disclosure: I previously reviewed this film for Macabre Daily and was mixed about it. Recently, I gave it a rewatch and have come around to appreciating some of the nuances I overlooked or missed completely at first viewing. This movie is just dripping in location beauty and escalating despair. After watching a ship sink off the coast of their Artic Bay fishing camp. An already starving fishing crew offers no help to the dying sailor, runs aground, and soon begins to fear they’ve been cursed by a draugr, a reanimated corpse bent on revenge. Fun times! This movie is so beautifully shot and lit you must watch it for that alone. Luckily, the acting is remarkable, and the story is chillingly bleak.

“Extra Ordinary” was easily one of my favorite films of 2019. This hilarious horror/comedy film,  written and directed by Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, stars Maeve Higgins, Barry Ward, Will Forte, Claudia O'Doherty, Jamie Beamish, Terri Chandler, Risteárd Cooper, and Emma Coleman. It has some of the funniest scenes you’ll ever see in a horror comedy. After Rose Dooley accidentally causes her Father’s death using her paranormal skills, she spends her time ignoring the spectral doings taking place around her. That is until Martin Martin (not a typo) asks her for help getting rid of his abusive wife’s ghost. Will Forte show up as a former one-hit-wonder musician keen on sacrificing a virgin to regain his popularity? Did I mention it’s funny? Barry Ward gets possessed by the spirit of his horrible wife, and the ensuing five minutes had us on the floor. To say any more would ruin the fun, but trust me when I say this movie is a goofy, sweet, hysterical take on (para) normal people just trying to get by.

“You Are Not My Mother” is a 2021 Irish psychological horror film written and directed by Kate Dolan, starring Hazel Doupe, Ingrid Craigie, and Carolyn Bracken. Utilizing the Changling mythology, the movie poses the question, “What if my Mother was something…else.” The way the folklore is presented and woven throughout the narrative is done so well that it constantly keeps you engaged and on your toes. I love it when a movie does that. The performances are phenomenal, and Dolan does a tremendous job with a relatively small budget. Shout out to Carolyn Bracken, who, after “Oddity,” is becoming something of an Irish Scream Queen.

Number two on the Top Ten goes to “Caveat,” a 2020 Irish horror film written, directed, and edited by Damian McCarthy, making his feature directorial debut. Starring Johnny French and Leila Sykes, the film follows French, a down-on-his-luck drifter with partial memory loss (love that noir touch) who takes a job looking after a disturbed young woman on a secluded island. What could possibly go wrong?!? Being this ewas McCarthy’s directorial debut, I had no frame of reference for previous work. To say I was blown away would be a massive understatement. There’s so much to love about the script, direction, and editing of this film. A remarkable achievement that only gets better with each viewing. This movie had one of THE biggest scares that I absolutely knew was coming, and I STILL jumped out of my chair. To pull something like that off your film needs to be a tight and precise as a swiss watch, and “Caveat” is exactly that. Like the best ghost stories you’ve ever heard, there are equal measures of dread, loneliness, humor, and terror, all working together to produce an amazing final result.

And the #1 spot goes to…….” Oddity!” (2024) That’s right. Damian McCarthy taking the top two spots on the Top 10 of “Irish Horror Films You Need To See.” His follow-up to “Caveat,” this film follows a blind medium and oddity shopkeeper grieving the recent death of her twin sister who uses her arcane ability to uncover the foul play that occurred. This movie is like a swiss army knife of horror pleasure, it has everything you need. The best cold open to a film in decades, check; the right amount of humor, folklore, mystery, and horror, check; performances that elevate the already phenomenal screenwriting, check! This was my pick for the best movie of 2024, and I’ve advocated for it on every podcast I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited to. McCarthy, like Demián Rugna, is a fanatical “must follow.” If you haven’t seen this movie, treat yourself tonight. St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect time to put a little Celtic horror in your heart.

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