Touted as the first Irish-language horror film, John Farrelly’s An Taibhse (The Ghost) is a well-intentioned mix of folk horror, disturbing imagery, and narrative references to the horror genre in general (mostly The Shining (1980)). With an all-too familiar setting (a foreboding mansion in the dead of winter) and a tried-and-true plot in which characters are secluded in an isolated location that slowly drives them mad, An Taibhse is all but wearing a giant sign that says “Hi, I’m a horror movie.” The familiar plot, frequent religious imagery, and vaguely “old-timey” sets and costumes are collectively reaching toward the haunting aesthetic factor that makes movies like The Witch (2015), Hereditary (2018), and The Shining so deeply and viscerally disturbing. However, An Taibhse doesn’t achieve that same level of creepiness. Upon closer analysis, you may find that there’s a lot going on in An Taibhse that’s worth talking about. However, it doesn’t necessarily make for the most interesting viewing experience. It spends its 92 minutes telling us that it’s a horror movie rather than making us feel horror.
L-R: Livvy Hill as Máire and Tom Kerrisk as Éamon in AN TAIBHSE. Photo courtesy of Jackpot Films.
Much like The Shining, An Taibhse begins with its two main characters, Éamon (Tom Kerrisk) and his daughter, Máire (Livvy Hill), traveling to a secluded mansion where they will serve as caretakers during the winter. After they arrive and settle in, their days of window washing and roof repairing are followed by bitterly cold nights sharing stew together by candlelight. Máire, troubled by a ghost (or perhaps a hallucination) from her past named “Alexander,” begins to experience haunting occurrences during the night that get progressively more disturbing. To make things worse, Éamon soon suffers a brutal injury that renders him unable to walk, leaving Máire with double the work. As days turn into weeks and Éamon turns to alcohol, both father and daughter slowly lose their grip on reality, haunted by very different forms of madness.
Tom Kerrisk as Éamon in AN TAIBHSE. Photo courtesy of Jackpot Films.
When analyzed within individual shots, the imagery in An Taibhse is strong and effective. The movie includes a satisfactory mix of chilling fog-covered landscape shots and eerie images of the mansion’s interior at night, making good use of the setting in an attempt to create a sense of isolation and supernatural mischief. The last sequence is especially inspired, drawing viewers into the darkest part of the house as tension builds to a disturbing tipping point. There’s a good smattering of creepy imagery throughout An Taibhse that draws inspiration from religion, folk horror, and gothic literature. However, the movie struggles to pull all this imagery together. There are several elements that stick out like a sore thumb, including a random puppet and a ghost/monster that resembles a modern-day creepy pasta drawing. An Taibhse is a well-rounded grab bag of horror imagery that can work, but it doesn’t necessarily work together.
Livvy Hill as Máire in AN TAIBHSE. Photo courtesy of Jackpot Films.
More importantly, aside from those individual disturbing shots and a few well-timed jump scares, An Taibhse isn’t very scary, thrilling, or creepy as a whole. It struggles to build tension, which is crucial for this specific type of “slow-descent-into-madness” plot. One of the main issues is that the dialogue is too stiff and straightforward, clearly written to convey information to the audience rather than to mimic the way that humans actually talk and interact. Granted, there could be an issue with how the dialogue is translated into English for the subtitles. But considering how much narrative information is spoon-fed to us through the dialogue, it’s fair to say that there’s a bigger issue at play than bad translations. This type of information-driven dialogue makes it difficult to see the characters as real people, and we’re therefore much less interested in what happens to them.
Tom Kerrisk as Éamon in AN TAIBHSE. Photo courtesy of Jackpot Films.
Another part of the issue is that you can’t watch An Taibhse without being acutely aware that you’re seeing people in costumes acting out a story, which makes it difficult to take that story seriously. While most films can make us subconsciously suspend disbelief, creating a seamless illusion to convince us that what we’re watching is real, An Taibhse has more of a childlike, immature quality similar to a children’s play. This is caused in part by the stiff and unnatural dialogue — but another huge factor is the fact that the sets, props, and costumes are full of anachronisms. The house that Éamon and Máire are taking care of has clearly been wired for electricity, and you can even see a bare lightbulb and an electric fan in one shot (the story is supposed to be set in post-famine Ireland, so 1850-something). The costumes and the decor around the home are vaguely “old-timey,” but they don’t fit together to form a cohesive period-piece aesthetic.
Livvy Hill as Máire in AN TAIBHSE. Photo courtesy of Jackpot Films.
While these issues make it impossible to watch and enjoy An Taibhse in the same way you might watch and enjoy a more refined horror film, they do add a touch of charm and humility that you don’t always get from big-budget productions. When you see that dangling lightbulb and the electric fan, your first instinct might be to criticize the film, but then you can’t help but wonder if those details were left in on purpose as an acknowledgment of the limitations of this film. Similar to the line in Barbie (2023) where the narrator makes a “note” to the filmmakers about how no one wants to hear a movie star like Margot Robbie complaining about her looks, the anachronistic details in An Taibhse serve as self-aware fourth-wall breakers that celebrate the process of filmmaking and acknowledge the difficulties of bringing a script to life. Even if these details are unintentional mistakes, they nevertheless wrap An Taibhse in a layer of self-awareness that asks the audience to consider the film as part of a bigger conversation about horror, Irish cinema, and low-budget filmmaking.
Livvy Hill as Máire in AN TAIBHSE. Photo courtesy of Jackpot Films.
An Taibhse leaves us, then, with a very important question: how seriously are we supposed to take this film? Some moments are so hilariously over-the-top and dramatic (like the scene in which Éamon injures himself) that you can’t help but wonder if they’re supposed to be satire. But, considering the subject of the film and the heavy themes embedded in Éamon and Máire’s relationship, you’d think that the film is taking itself very seriously. An Taibhse lands somewhere between awkwardly childish and charmingly sincere, between an underdeveloped feature debut and an honorable horror homage.
Screened during the 2024 Newport Beach Film Festival.
Final Score: 2.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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