The Morrigan review – spirit of pagan demon queen unleashed in Irish burial chamber horror

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Archaeologists blunder into an ancient and unwittingly release a vengeful monster – with predictable and conventional results In Irish folklore, the Morrígan is a powerful goddess of death and war. This horror movie imagines her as an actual historical figure: a pagan queen massacred with her followers by Christians. A quick scene at the start of the film shows the dirty deed. The Morrígan’s rage against misogyny has screamed down through the centuries – so it’s a shame the film frames her not as a feminist icon but a highly conventional horror movie nemesis; a malign vengeful female to be crushed and destroyed. There is nothing to punch the air about in the end. Saffron Burrows plays an archaeologist called Fiona who has been repeatedly passed over for tenure at her US university. When Fiona presents her radical theory that the myth of the Morrígan may have a basis in real life, her slippery colleague Jonathan (Jonathan Forbes) is made the lead on the dig. Fiona is forced to bring al...
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Nightmare review – atmospheric property horror treads line between dreams and reality

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A young woman is tormented in her sleep in this crepuscular debut feature from Norwegian writer-director Kjersti Helen Rasmussen

If there is one place you would have thought a sleep-deprived person might be able to stop herself dropping off, it’s in a lecture about sleep. But that’s what this atmospheric but somewhat heavy-handed debut feature from Norway has its protagonist Mona (Eili Harboe) do as she is introduced by dishevelled academic Aksel (Dennis Storhøi) to the possibility that she has become the victim of the mythical incubus Mare. This may explain a recent run of freakish dreams in which she’s tormented by a vampiric doppelganger of her caring boyfriend Robby (Herman Tømmeraas).

Nightmare also belongs to the school of property horror already occupied by The Tenant and Mother! Left alone by Robby, a high-flyer preoccupied with some kind of algorithmic investment venture, Mona is charged with renovating their sprawling new apartment which they acquired on the cheap after its previous occupant, who was pregnant, died in a mysterious accident. Their neighbours, who have a newborn baby and are prone to staring eerily across the courtyard, seem to have issues, too. But none of this rings any alarm bells until Mona – vaguely thinking about having kids with Robby – begins sleepwalking.

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