The Birds of Ballygáire.

thank you so much for reading. i appreciate it.

Special thanks to @terastrialbean for script editing & @junkohanhero for their wonderful typewriter fonts.

Saint Maud, 2019, dir. Rose Glass

The Hole in the Ground (2019)

Directed by Lee Cronin Written by Lee Cronin and Stephen Shields

Rawhead Rex (1986)

A movie that on its own would have been fine, but unfortunately does not live up to the expectations set by having the name Clive Barker attacked to it. Overall it is your standard monster movie: monster shows up, kills some people, get's a little bit of backstory, then at the last minute some weakness is discovered and exploited to defeat them. As I said, if you just want to watch a thing kill some people, it's good for that. However, this specific thing, is just kinda unremarkable, both in appearance and backstory. And quite a far cry from the penis-headed horror that Clive Barker had envisioned.

6/10

Cover art for Valkyrie Loughcrewe's CROM CRUACH, out now from Tenebrous Press

Changeling is live on YouTube on Alter channel right now for free!

Our self funded, no crew, lockdown short film made in Ireland is out!

A horror based on true accounts of Changeling mythology in famine era Ireland.

My book came out this year, be cool if you read it.

Some monster designs I'm working on for one of my comics

My book was published this year, be pretty cool if you read it.

ALL YOU NEED IS DEATH (2023)

A couple, Man and Woman, drive around Ireland and collect old folk songs.  An old singing dude refers them to a certain woman who knows even older songs.  They go to a seminar where the Teacher… teaches people how to collect songs.  The couple don’t know how to track down the certain woman, but the Teacher fills in the holes in their knowledge.

The couple visit the town and Woman flirts with a guy and convinces him to take them to the singing woman.  They arrive at her house, but the Teacher is already there!  The old woman speaks to them from inside the bureau, which is weird, but she eventually comes out.  Seemingly convinced by Woman’s Irishness, and Woman’s act of turning off her voice recorder, she agrees to sing for them, but Man must leave.  Old Woman explains that the song is very old, and not even in Irish.  “The song has no name,” Old Woman says, “but if it did have a name, it would be love is a knife with a blade for a handle.”  Not ominous at all.  She then sings a haunting dirge.  The two women leave the house.  Woman tries to sing what she remembers of the song, but Man realizes that Teacher was recording it!  They drive after her and she confesses, that, yes, she did record it!

Meanwhile, Old Woman is wandering about her house.  She’s looking for something to drink (cuz she’s a drunk) but a shadowy figure suddenly kills her by shoving a bottle down her throat!  Her Son arrives home soon thereafter and finds her dead body.  He starts reaching out to people to find out if anyone strange was in town, which leads him to the guy that led the couple to his house.  Son catches the guy and ties him to a bed.  Son talks about his grandmother, who knew even older songs than his mother.  “Not saying that she was a witch or anything, but I’m not saying she wasn’t either.”  Sometimes Son would sleep in the room with her, and he’d see smudges out of the corner of his eye.  His mother and grandmother were upset that he wasn’t a girl, and so he pulls down his pants to show the young guy that he’s cut off his penis!  Anyway, young guy tells him about the couple, and Son takes off to find them.

Teacher has been translating the song from Old Irish.  It’s about a lord and his wife, and she falls in love with another man so he tosses her into a dungeon.  I guess she eats her child?  Teacher plays the song for Man, who is compelled to never leave her side, and they start fucking.  Woman tries to get in touch with them, but it seems they cut her off and now she’s wandering about the mean street of Dublin, where Son catches her!  He takes her somewhere and tells her that his mom is dead, and Woman immediately blames Teacher.  They start to look for her.  Meanwhile, Teacher and Man are staying together at her factory-house.  He’s bedbound and emaciated and acting really weird, and she’s showing signs of being pregnant, despite the fact that she’s had a hysterectomy! 

Woman and Son eventually locate the factory-house.  Inside, Son confronts Teacher, who theorizes that the song was “maybe a spell to contain a demon.”  She says that she didn’t kill the old woman, and Son believes her.  Teacher next theorizes that maybe the old woman died because she broke a promise of some sort.  Woman finds Man.  He’s skeletally skin.  She wants to get him help, and he says sure, “and then we will be together.”  “You and me?” Woman asks.  “Silly,” he says.  “Teacher and I.”  Woman freaks out.  She goes to Son and tells him that they have to kill the two.  He doesn’t want to, but Woman grabs a knife and goes and kills Man.  Then she kills Son!  She goes to watch Teacher writhing about in pain, and as the next morning arrives Teacher turns into a weird humanoid being!  In the voices of Man and Teacher, it asks her, “Do you still love us?”  “Yes,” she says.  “You are going to become a part of us,” it says, and then it eats her!  It wanders out of the building.

This was fine.  I was expecting something strongly folk horror-ish, but this is actually more of a haunted object story, if you accept that the object can be a song and not, say, a haunted mirror, a la “Oculus” (2013).  The film maintains a good level of creepiness, but in the end it all hinges on the performance of the old woman and her song, which are successful!  She has wild white hair and talks to you from inside a bureau, and she has a strong, beautiful voice.  The tune is strange and haunting, much like the movie.

Horror Movie Review: Caveat (2020)

A drifter agrees to be chained and to look after a psychologically disturbed woman in a house on a secluded island.

Caveat is an Irish horror film written, directed and edited by Damian Mc Carthy in his feature directorial debut. It stars Johnny French as Isaac, a drifter who accepts a job to look after a psychologically disturbed woman in a house on a secluded island. Isaac is hired by his acquaintance and landlord Moe Barrett to look after his niece Olga, who will occasionally go catatonic with little to no…

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"Hammers on Bone" by Cassandra Khaw

I finished reading this today and I thought I’d share. I’ve read another book by this author prior to this and that’s what drew me to this book. I enjoy a good horror book, plus, this one was a quick read. If you are interested in reading about monsters, then you may enjoy this book. However, this book isn’t for younger audiences and probably not for the faint of heart either. Synopsis: John…

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A group of friends head out into the woods to camp out for a music festival, but things take a turn for the worst in this Irish folklore slasher film, The film is exactly what you think its going to be, grainy and bleak, but a good watch.

Rating: ★★★

My mother. At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her. Through our thing shared wall, I can hear the makings of my mother gurgle gurgle through her body, just like the water in the walls of the house. I hate the sound.

- Where I End by Sophie White

FRANCIS BACON / "PAINTING" / 1946 [oil and pastel on linen | 6' 5 7/8" x 52"]

“The Poisoned Glen”

Day 14 - Castle

Old Church of Dunlewey