Director: Paul Duane
Year: 2024
Country: Ireland
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Learning of a potentially intriguing story, a pair of documentarians committed to recording long-forgotten folk songs learn of a potentially long-forgotten song in the Irish countryside and set out to capture it against the wishes of the locals, unleashing a bizarre curse that envelops them both.
Review:
This was a rather problematic genre effort. Most of the film’s positive points stem from the central setup and atmospheric touches running throughout here which provide a genuinely engrossing sense of mystery. The main idea of relying on the power of traditional and even sometimes generational customs, in this case regarding the nature of the mythic song in question, offers the kind of fascinating insight into the past that this one relies quite heavily on. With the majority of the middle half devoted to how this plays out regarding how to honor the traditions of the past that have used a specific medium over time, this kind of corruption makes for an intriguing setup looking at the way it unfolds involving the king of unraveling curse that takes place. That allows for some rather chilling scenarios to take place here as a result, including various gruesome attacks and confrontations to let the curse play out.
Outside of this, though, there’s just not much going on here to remain interesting. Far too much of the film is reliant on the idea of the curse coming to fruition but it’s never given much of any care or interest in what that means or why they’re interested in getting the song recorded. The whole concept is so wacky and bizarre that there’s no real grounded form in play here to make things have an emotional attachment to it so that comes off rather flimsy and awkward, especially as this one goes along with the aspects of the curse as that doesn’t get explored in the slightest so it all makes for a confusing time. When it’s not concerned with the aspects of the curse, it’s just flat-out dull as very little happens so the pacing here is completely stiffened to the point of plodding blandly along to where it’s nearly impossible to care about the story going forward. There’s so little life or energy in what’s going on that it just doesn’t register anything but boredom, all of which hold this down overall.
Overview: *.5/5
A solid concept but wholly misses the mark in every other regard, this one is fine for what it is but still has way too many issues that hold it down leaving it a huge missed opportunity overall. Give it a shot if you're fine with the drawbacks or are fans of the approach taken here while most others out there should heed massive caution with it.
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