My Little Powrie

Unwelcome (Jon Wright, 2023)

Ireland has produced some solid horror films over the years, and director Jon Wright has played a hand thanks to standouts like Tormented (2009) and Grabbers (2012). His latest film, Unwelcome (2023), is a fairy tale style horror inspired by Celtic folklore that I've seen accurately described as Straw Dogs meets Fraggle Rock.

After a traumatic home invasion, young couple, Jamie (Douglas Booth) and his expectant wife Maya (Hannah John-Kamen), discover they've inherited a house in the Irish countryside and so upsticks from the shit hole that is London for greener pastures. With their new home needing repairs, our couple unknowingly hire the services of the local scumbag family, led by the patriarch "Daddy" Whelan (Colm Meaney). As can be expected, things escalate from loafting while on the job to more threatening territory. To add further fuel to the fire, our protagonists' home also has other occupants residing at the bottom of their garden - folklore creatures known as redcaps.

Unwelcome harkens back to old creature features in the vein of Gremlins. Filmed with a combination of traditional practical effects and digital wizardry, the end result for these violent redcaps is very impressive. Along with their wicked nature, the imps are entertaining to watch as they lay the smack down upon the Whelans. Their comedic actions and behaviour were what really made the film for me.

The garden scenes were filmed in a studio. This proved to be an ingenious decision, as it utilised the exaggerated theatrics present in old studio films for instant visual changes to occur. I also observed the use of a studio evoked the twisted fairy tale atmosphere of Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves (1984). This stylised treatment adds a lot to the fantastical elments of the film.

Unwelcome isn't entirely perfect. Fantastical as the premise might be, Jamie being such a failure is cringe to watch at times, regardless if it's for comedic purposes. His character does develop some courage during one confrontational scene; in a similar vain to Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs (1971), but he's definitely a burden to Maya at times. She is the stronger person of the two, and it becomes more apparent throughout the film that she is the film's focal point.

Kudos to Jon Wright for avoiding what could have potentially been another excrutiatingly pretentious, art house, folk-horror and delivering an accessible and entertaining creature feature for commoners like me. Since Hatching (2022) eventually made it onto Joe Dante's radar, then I would wager Unwelcome's murderous critters would wind up on there, too. It's not perfect, but Wright's film manages to break the disappointing run of horror films that have been around in the last few months and that's a cause for celebration from me. Enjoyable film.