I’m always a sucker for horror films that pepper folklore into their stories. Films like An American Werewolf in London, The Ritual, and even the sillier Subspecies series stand out to me because of the extra storytelling that seems to bring more life to the tales. Chris Baugh’s Boys from County Hell, a new Shudder exclusive, follows suit by recreating some historical vampire lore to match its setting while delivering a solid horror comedy.
Boys from County Hell follows Eugene Moffat (Jack Rowan), a college-aged man meandering through life in the small Irish town of Six Mile Hill, locally famous for being home to the “real story” that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula. Along with his best friends William (Fra Fee), SP (Michael Hough), and Claire (Louisa Harland), Eugene spends his days getting thrashed at the local pub, tricking outsiders into giving up their cash for local tours, and working as a construction contractor with for his father’s company. On Eugene’s property lies an ancient cairn, supposedly the resting place of Abhartach, a vampiric local that fed upon the blood of town residents before being killed and buried.
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After a freak accident and tragedy hits the group of friends, Eugene decides to bulldoze the cairn against the suggestions of locals. What he and his friends don’t know, is that they’ve once again unleashed the blood-draining evil of Abhartach upon Six Mile Hill, and together must put a stop to his reign before he can build an army of vampires and drain the town of every last drop.
Boys from County Hell does a fantastic job of towing the line between comedy and horror. Much like Shaun of the Dead, there are many comedic moments that suddenly shift to serious themes. Comedy helps the audience relate with and feel for the characters more, so when bad things happen to them, we’re hit just a little harder than we normally would be. The pacing of this has to do be done perfectly, otherwise you wind up with too much of a rapid fluctuation between emotions and genres. Chris Baugh finds the sweet spot with this film.
The acting in the film was solid all around. I think I gravitated toward liking SP the most, as he is also a big dude with a red beard (like me) and provided the most comedic content in the film. I really appreciated the chemistry between Eugene and his father as well. They nailed the distant father-and-son relationship that yearns for some closeness. The barriers both characters broke toward one another was inspiring and heartfelt by the end of the film. My only qualm with the character portrayals was the lack of empathy and sadness when a pretty serious tragedy hits the group. Maybe it was the difference between American and Irish culture, but the responses to something that would cause immense grief, just didn’t really seem to be there.
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Along with the folklore aspect, I absolutely love historical fiction, and the ability to play around with true events, twisting them to fit the narrative of a story. I’m a huge fan of Dan Simmons’ novels for this exact reason, and the story behind this film reminded me of his work. I did feel like it wrapped up a little quickly, leaving open a lot of questions about looming dangers for the future of our characters or this town. The ending felt a little like tying a nice bow around a shoe box while the contents were leaking through the bottom. It felt like there should have been more story to tell.
A couple more highlights of the film for me were the blood and creature effects. There were some downright nasty moments of blood leaking from people’s eyes and ears that had me rubbing my face just to make sure it wasn’t happening to me. Abhartach’s design and makeup was rigid and chilling, pulling inspiration from a mixture of the classic vampire look like Nosferatu and the underground dwelling creatures of The Descent. Excellent prosthetics and practical effects were used in things like hearts being ripped out, decapitations, and limb extractions…you know, all the good stuff welcomed in any competent vampire film. CG was used sparingly, and it didn’t look great, but was used in quick, dark moments, an intelligent way to handle lower-budget CG.
If you would like to check it out for yourself, Boys from County Hell is now on Shudder.
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