Boys From County Hell

Every vampire film or TV show brings it's own thing to the mythology of the undead. In Fright Night, crucifixes only worked if the hero wielding them had a religious belief. In Ganja & Hess, even standing in the shadow of a cross could be fatal to a bloodsucker.  Near Dark told us a complete blood transfusion could save a bitten person from turning to the dark side. In Blade II the vamps didn't have fangs but instead a disgusting little sucker under their tongues and in Buffy, every vampire rose from the grave with new found mixed martial arts skills. Boys From County Hell adds a new vampiric power to the mix. One that gives us a visceral and quite stomach churning opening as we watch a familiar face in Irish cinema meet his maker. It's a great opening to a new Irish comedy horror that plays it's horror very straight.

Every year in Ireland farmers die on their own land due to accidents involving animals or machinery. A similar night time fatality is the catalyst for the events of Boys From County Hell when blood is spilled on the green grass of Six Mile Hill, a small town north of the border, famous for being the burial site of the Abhartach, an evil creature who inspired Bram Stoker to write his most famous novel. Something vile has risen from the earth because of it and it's up to a group of townsfolk, lead by Eugene Moffat (Jack Rowan) and his father Francie (Nigel O'Neill), to deal with it.

Boys From County Hell make be less than 90 minutes long but it takes its time. Writer/Director Chris Baugh lets us get to know it's characters before it rips them apart. Eugene, the young man struggling with finding his path, his friends SP (Michael Hough), William (Fra Free) and Claire (Louisa Harland), one content with small town life and the others mad to get away from it. His father Francie, distant from his son since his wife's passing and utterly frustrated at Eugene for wasting his days in the pub. It shows us the problems faced by young people in small towns are universal. Nothing to do. Nothing to see. No money and nowhere to spend it anyway. The twin spectres of emigration and alcoholism haunting them. But the youngsters of Six Mile Hill have something else haunting them too now and this film makes sure you give a damn about them while they're fighting back against it.

This one plays it's horror horribly and gleans it's comedy from the typically Irish reactions to it. There's little in the way of jokes, it's more in the incidental humour that arises from the way the characters onscreen interact. A strangled "fuck" as a reaction to a ripped out organ. The painfully inept way Irish men deal with grief and emotion. An exposition dump laid out by a narrator carrying a bag of cans. A freshly risen revenant getting the good room in the house and numerous other little tidbits that might fly over the head of an international audience but ones that will give the people that know them a proper belly laugh. Much needed laughs too because Boys From County Hell doesn't mess about with the horrifying aspects of the story. There's literal streams of blood splashing around the screen at points, a mother's screams and a father's anguish in a brutal morgue scene, nightmarish moments of a dark presence draining the life from a town, all leading to a gory gag at the climax that will leave you dry heaving. Boys doesn't shy from jokes or scares and makes sure one never takes from the other.

While the main plot line might be about a demonic being terrorising a town, the film's heart lies with two men dealing with a tragic past and Jack Rowan and Nigel O'Neill both nail their parts, with a genuine feeling relationship between father and son. There's love there but neither will show it, giving us a painfully realistic kicker of a laugh during the climax, one that will sadly strike true for many viewers. Of the supporting cast it's Michael Hough standing out playing a character we've all encountered in our earlier years and it's nice to see Louisa Harland giving us a sense of what she's capable of away from Derry Girls.

Boys From County Hell is showing at the Dublin International Film Festival now and will be streaming on Shudder next month. Hopefully when cinemas reopen it will get screenings too. It's a film that will go down a treat with a loud, appreciative audience of horror fans. It deserves to. It's deadly.