Latest news with #TheWickerMan
Irish Examiner
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Stitch review: Irene Kelleher shines in dark tale set on Cork's Shandon Street
Stitch, J Nolan's Stationery Shop, Shandon St, Cork Midsummer Festival ★★★★☆ Watching a play set at the spookiest time of the year, performed in a dark and gloomy old shop, on the day of the summer solstice, when the sun is splitting the stones outside creates a somewhat jarring disconnect. However, it is an unsettling feeling that is perfectly in tune with the themes of Stitch, a one-woman play performed by Irene Kelleher as part of Cork Midsummer Festival. The play makes good use of its site-specific location — a former shop on Shandon Street, here brilliantly transformed by set designer Jenny Whyte into Pins and Needles, a dilapidated seamstress's premises in a small Irish town. It is Halloween night, 1989, and the shop is about to be turned into an Xtravision but one tenant remains, a girl called Alice. This is no wonderland, however, and soon we discover the sad and horrifying story of Alice's past and the scars she bears, both visible and invisible. Stitch was performed at the a former stationery shop on Shandon Street, Cork. As well as the reminders of real-life tragedies and the repression and pious hypocrisy of Irish society, there are disturbing echoes of the folk horror of The Wicker Man as Alice talks of the crowning of the Samhain Festival Queen, and The Butcher Boy, when she dances around wearing a pig mask. It is truly heartrending to witness Alice, with her hair in girlish plaits, cuddling her beloved cat and crying for her mammy. When she fantasises about how all of the locals who colluded in her nightmarish existence will burn on the Samhain pyre, you feel like picking up a torch and joining her. Irene Kelleher in Stitch. Picture: Marcin Lewandowski Kelleher is also on writing duties for Stitch, and the ingenious use of rhyme effectively conveys the horrific adult experiences Alice has been exposed to as a child. Her performance too bursts with imagination — she conjures up entire characters from the rags and remnants that surround her — although the splenetic rage can sometimes tip over into melodrama. Overall, it is a feat of extraordinary commitment, made even more impressive by the fact that Kelleher performed Stitch in tandem with another one-woman show in the festival, Footnote. Her vision is realised with skill and verve by director Regina Crowley, while production, overseen by Michael Anthony Greene, is outstanding, with sound and lighting design by Cormac O'Connor and costumes and masks by Valentina Gambardella adding greatly to the overall atmosphere.
RTÉ News
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Glory and gory be! 28 Years Later is
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland mix the gory with political allegory and a touching family drama in this riveting zombie thriller After great early promise in 2002 with 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle's zombie franchise looked like it was going to reanimate a moribund movie cliché but it all stumbled and shuddered to an ignoble halt with the delayed and frankly awful follow-up 28 Weeks Later. Now prefaced by much "is he/isn't he?" speculation about whether Cillian Murphy would reprise his role from the first movie (he isn't), Boyle is back at his maverick best with this deeply creepy return to form which reignites the twitchy paranoia and dread of the original. And glory and gory be - writer Alex Garland, and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle also return, as does Murphy but as executive producer and not having taken his Oppenheimer diet to extremes to play a member of the emaciated massive. They have conjured up a fever dream of a film that somehow looks like a cross pollination of Mike Leigh realism, and the sickening surrealism of Straw Dogs and The Wicker Man. We are now on Holy Island off the northeast coast of England, 28 years after the accidental release of a highly contagious virus which caused the breakdown of society and turned infected folk into slavering maniacs with The Rage. Perfidious Albion is now in a state of not so splendid isolation and in quarantine patrolled by European vessels. Garland and Boyle do not hold back on gleeful commentary about the contemporary UK's perilous state, cut-off politically and culturally from the continent and muddling along with a sense of misplaced exceptionalism and proud independence. This post-apocalyptic vision of ye olde merrie future England comes shot through with the look and feel of the fabled lost 1950s Britain beloved of Reform voters and Brexiteers. So political allegory and gore is the order of the day; In the island's village hall a tapestry of a young Queen Elizabeth II in her coronation year takes pride of place and Boyle uses clips from Laurence Olivier's Henry V and wartime newsreel footage of the Blitz to underline the fortress Britain atmosphere. Later, we see the flag of St George in flames. Bow and arrows are the weapon of choice; everyone is dressed in ragamuffin chic and the island looks like it's devolved back to medieval England. Or maybe Féile '90. Wrapped in that grim tableau is a touching family drama concerning 12-year-old Spike (a very impressive Alfie Williams) and his parents, Isla (Jodie Comer - great as usual), who is suffering from a mysterious illness that causes huge trauma and grief for her doting son, and Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a scavenger and survivalist given to flashes of his own type of rage. We first meet Spike on what will be a big day for him. He is about to be taken across the causeway that connects the island to the still contaminated mainland on his first sortie among the infected; a rite of passage that will test his mettle and see him take his place within the village hierarchy. Once across the causeway, the action clicks with an unforgiving ferocity and father and son barely make it home after a gripping moonlit dash back across the causeway as the tide goes out. As we have seen from the first two movies in the series, these zombies are not the shambling husks of B-movie lore but fleet of foot savages who pose a genuine threat. However, Garland and Boyle also introduce two new breeds of zombie - obese, sluggish creatures who forage about on the forest floor and have a nasty talent for creeping up on their prey, and Alphas, muscular pack leaders who take a lot to kill. When Spike hears about the mysterious Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), an eccentric former GP who has remained uninfected and choses to live on the mainland, he sees him as a salvation for his sick mother and so he spirits her back across to the mainland much to the anger of the island's elders and his stricken father. Once we are back off the island, the movie takes on a semi-mystical air with impressionistic riddles and symbols and spiritual ceremony surrounding Dr Kelson. He is clearly the Col Kurtz of the piece, a shamanic witch doctor of sorts, who tends to his very own bone orchard and has his own way of dealing with the infected marauders. The sense of loss is everywhere. There are haunting and very moving glimpses of Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North sculpture rearing starkly from the landscape like the Statue Of Liberty in The Planet of The Apes and a very poignant shot of the now felled tree in the Sycamore Gap at Hadrian's Wall. A brief appearance by Edvin Ryding as a sardonic Swedish NATO soldier, who has been shipwrecked off the coast, adds another dose of dark humour to a movie which is surprisingly funny as well as disturbing. Scottish band Young Fathers provide a pumping but abstract soundtrack for what is a multi-layered, poetic and lyrical movie but with plenty of the comic book gore beloved of fans of the franchise. Arrows fly and slice through zombie flesh and that mad dash across the causeway is exhilarating. Full of strange images and taut action scenes, Boyle has said he wanted a sense of "suffocating intensity" to the film and he really does achieve it The bravado closing sequence, which strangely reminded me of some groovy sixties rock `n' roll flick starring Oliver Reed, includes a crowd-pleasing cameo and sets things up smoothly for the next instalment. If it's as good as this acrid, kerosene-choked thrill ride, we're in for another treat.
Winnipeg Free Press
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Influencer culture pilloried in prose
Part mystery, part satire and even part horror, second-generation Chinese-Canadian writer Liann Zhang's debut novel is a bizarre but entertaining look at the world of social media influencer culture. Julie Chan is a supermarket cashier with no friends who steals food from work to keep herself fed. One day, she receives a disturbing phone call from her estranged twin sister, Chloe, a rich influencer with followers in the millions. Sensing something is wrong, Julie travels to Chloe's New York City penthouse and finds her sister dead on the floor. As she's about to report the death to the police, Julie quickly makes the rash decision to switch places, ditching her sad, anonymous life for her twin's more comfortable and glamorous one. Julie Chan is Dead With unwitting help from Chloe's manager, Julie seamlessly continues her sister's social media life, interacting with fans, receiving lavish gifts and going to trendy parties. At first, no one in Chloe's world suspects the truth, and everyone writes off any strange behaviour as her just being '#sad' and '#grieving.' But it doesn't take long for her aunt and cousin to figure out what's going on, and Julie soon finds herself being blackmailed. In order to pay off her scheming family members, she becomes a lot more obvious with paid endorsements on her channels, while watching her numbers drop on each platform. Thankfully, Julie has her new influencer friends to cheer her up. A group of mostly indistinguishable twentysomething white women, the Belladonnas are led by Bella Marie, whose level of fame and wealth seems almost unattainable for a social media personality. But, of course, Julie soon learns her new friends may be hiding some sinister secrets. Toronto- and Vancouver-based Zhang was only 16 when she had her own brush with internet fame, gaining over 20,000 followers on a skincare-themed Instagram account. The author, who now has a degree in psychology and criminology, says this book was inspired by the fellow influencers she met through group chats. Clearly she has some strong, negative feelings from this experience, as most characters are quite unlikable — even Julie, who quickly embraces her new personality. Zhang takes some fun shots at influencer culture, and that cynical humour drives the first half of the novel. But it does get dragged down by some very predictable turns. Then a huge twist comes that makes the second half seem like a different book altogether. It quickly delves into cult-horror territory — think Rosemary's Baby or The Wicker Man but with trite self-help affirmations and beauty tips. The shift may be a bit jarring for some readers, but Zhang's cutting humour is amped up, along with the overall pace, which all leads to a ridiculous, over-the-top finale. While it has some flaws, Julie Chan is Dead is a fun, memorable debut. Hardly an influencer, Alan MacKenzie is struggling to find 600 subscribers for his YouTube channel.
Daily Mirror
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Nicolas Cage's 'meme-worthy' moment in new movie was inspired by classic film
Nicolas Cage stars in Lorcan Finnegan's new thriller The Surfer, which sees the Hollywood icon spiral into madness In his latest outing, The Surfer, directed by Lorcan Finnegan, Nicolas Cage revisits the offbeat, manic energy he's renowned for, plunging into a sun-drenched abyss of insanity. Cage plays a nameless surfer who travels back to his hometown in Australia with the intention of repurchasing his childhood residence. However, his plans are foiled when he and his son (played by Finn Little) are met with aggression by a clique of hostile locals at the beach, spearheaded by the captivating yet confrontational Scally (Julian McMahon). This unwarranted hostility relentlessly chips away at Cage's character's sanity. As the surfer's mental state continues to deteriorate, his desperation reaches new depths when he resorts to scavenging for food and entertains the notion of feasting on the dead body of a rat he had encountered before. Director Lorcan Finnegan shared an insider's perspective with Express Online, recalling the details of the scene: "We had two rats, one that had a mechanical part to bite him and another one that was soft for whacking against the card", reports the Express. "So he threw that away and he's supposed to find it the next day and think about taking a bit out of it. He picked it up and that's as far as it was in the script." Cage's penchant for injecting a bit of the unconventional into his characters ensures that each portrayal is nothing less than fascinating. Movie buffs and Cage aficionados, prepare for a scene set to join the ranks of the iconic 'Not the bees!' moment from The Wicker Man. In this moment, the surfer pockets a rat, turning it into an impromptu tool against Pitbull (Alexander Bertrand), one of Scally's henchmen. Director Finnegan revealed: "But then Nic put it in his pocket and he wasn't really sure why yet, but he was kind of formulating an idea. "The art department wanted the rat back, they were like, 'We need to keep that, we only have one', and he's like, 'No, no, I need to keep it in my pocket'." As it turns out, the wacky fight sequence was a brainchild of Cage himself, taking inspiration from a film icon in a classic flick from the '50s. Finnegan continued, explaining Cage's inspiration: "Then, I think it was the next day, he was telling me he had this idea that's related to Sabrina, the Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart movie. "There's a scene where Humphrey Bogart takes an olive out the jar and puts it into another guy's mouth and says 'Eat it!' "He'd rewatched that film just before coming to Australia and thought it was just hilarious, so he had this weird connection and wanted to take the rat and shove it into Pitbull's mouth during the fight and say 'Eat it!' So that was another bit of Cage magic. "I think there are little lines he'll give the film if he loves the process of it because he feels like it needs a little bit of something." Film enthusiasts can celebrate as Sabrina is now available for streaming on both NOW and Paramount+, offering an opportunity to delve into the roots of Nicolas Cage's most recent bout of inspired madness.
Irish Examiner
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Colin Sheridan: Facing up to my childhood fear of small islands
Many years ago, RTÉ screened a movie on a Friday night that was preceded by a short, introductory lecture from writer and director Gerry Stembridge. It usually followed The Late Late Show, so was a neat and natural segue from Gaybo calling Bernadette in Tullamore to tell her she's just won a Renault Clio. The late movie was a brilliant concept. The film chosen was always offbeat - Robert Altman's revisionist western McCabe & Mrs Miller, for example — but what made the idea so oddly compelling was Stembridge's preamble. He had a wonderful ability to de-nerdify whatever director was in the dock that week, while giving guidance on what to watch out for (Hitchcock's cameos, epic needle drops). History of tensions on set between actors on set, and casting what-ifs, that sort of thing. If memory serves, the intro lasted around ten minutes, so by the time the movie started you felt like Barry Norman, armed with cultural context and a half dozen anecdotes of misbehaving starlets. Even now, in the time of information ubiquity on the internet, such a brilliant segment would be immensely popular. Especially now, I would argue, as the entire raison-d'etre of immensely popular two-hour long prestige podcasts such as the Rewatchables is what Stembridge did in the time it took to make a late-night sandwich. If the State broadcaster is looking for ways to encourage discerning taxpayers to keep paying their TV license fees, they could do worse than get Stembridge back in a dimly lit studio and let him riff on Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon again. We would all learn something. My devotion to the late-night movie did have some unintended consequences, however. After a particularly fraught viewing of the 1973 folk-horror movie The Wicker Man, I developed a rather acute case of Insulaphobia, or a fear of small islands (undiagnosed, of course). Anybody who has watched the movie might understand why. It tells the story of a righteous police officer who visits the verdant Hebridean island of Summerisle off the coast of Scotland, to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. There, he is appalled to find lots of funky pagan rituals going down. Christopher Lee is in it as a Lord obsessed with agriculture. A woman with a sexy Scottish accent says stuff like 'you'll simply never understand the true nature of sacrifice,' over and over. Need I say more. My memory has banished much of The Wicker Man's horror and (if not the gratuitous nudity) from my little mind, but the opening shot has stayed with me for almost three decades. It begins with overcast aerial shots of the Scottish countryside, particularly the Hebridean islands, filmed from a seaplane. As the camera glides over the misty, rugged terrain, a folk-style ballad titled 'Corn Rigs' plays. The song, with lyrics adapted from a Robert Burns poem, is deceptively cheerful, evoking rural life and sexuality, while subtly hinting at the pagan themes of the film. The credits appear in simple white text, fading in and out over the natural landscape. It's a beautiful and unsettling sequence, creating a contrast between the serene scenery and the sense of isolation and foreboding that underpins the film. Ever since I saw it, I've been afraid of small islands, which, when you live on the West of Ireland, can be embarrassing and problematic. I was forced to face my fears over Easter when I headed west, out to Inishbofin. Of all the islands, Bofin is up there as the most beautiful. On the boat ride over, however, as the imposing Cromwellian fort juxtaposed itself surreally against deserted sandy beaches, I couldn't help feeling like the polite police constable sent over to investigate some shape-shifting shenanigans. My mood wasn't helped when — just off the boat — I was invited to an islander's party over the other side of the island. It was to begin around 3pm on Saturday and end, I gathered, sometime Tuesday I stayed in my room peeking through the shutters as my kids cycled the length and breadth of that idyllic piece of rock, stopping only to catch pollock with their new friends. They only came inside to change their saturated socks and go again. 'There's a bonfire on the beach tonight,' my son told me. 'And we're going?' I did my best Gerry Stembridge impression and tried to summarise the plot of The Wicker Man, but he had no interest, perhaps distracted by why I was suddenly wearing a cravat. Understanding I'd lost him to the cult, I figured it was best to face my fears and at least tip down to the inevitable human sacrifice, if only for journalistic reasons. There was indeed a bonfire, and food and crates of a locally brewed IPA. There was also an epic game of football on the beach. People of all ages had gathered, and there was no sign of Christopher Lee. I left with the youngsters, long before midnight. The following morning at breakfast I did a rough headcount, and it appears all islanders were accounted for. Everyone who lived there seemed oddly happy, if a little dismissive of our mainland ways. I sailed for home, another fear conquered, content the only cult encountered was the simple beauty of island life. Behind me, perhaps gently mocking me, the bonfire on the beach still raged.
