A Northern
Irish town with ties to vampiric lore has an uninvited guest in a funny if sometimes unbalanced film that channels Shaun of the Dead
Demolishing an ancient cairn is definitely high on the list of things people in horror movies should never do. Especially when the one out in the field near sleepy backwater Six Mile Hill supposedly houses Abhartach, reputedly the original inspiration for Dracula – a scary story that Eugene Moffat (Jack Rowan) and
Friends enjoy winding up tourists with down their local, the Stoker. When his best mate William winds up impaled on the stones on a boozy walk home, and Eugene’s attempted demolition
Job makes matters worse, the entire construction team must figure out how to put this haemoglobin-hoovering abomination back underground.
It’s surprising that Shaun of the Dead’s casual Brit domestication of the zombie apocalypse hasn’t spawned more imitators. So it’s cheering, after the gore starts to fly in this Northern Irish vampire flick, to hear bluff construction foreman Francie Moffat (Nigel O’Neill) announce there’s some “serious craic” afoot. Chris Baugh’s film doesn’t balance its piss-taking and blood-sucking duties with as much comedy-horror sprezzatura as Edgar Wright does – but sloshes enough briny humour around to make it more than passable craic itself.