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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I Know Where I’m Going! review – Powell and Pressburger classic is a pure joy

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The story of a headstrong heroine who knows what she wants, but is waylaid by the elements and an unexpected romance is one of the most lovable films in British cinema history

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1945 classic, rereleased now as part of the BFI’s nationally touring Powell/Pressburger season, has to be one of the most purely lovable films in British cinema history. There is outright joy in that inspired, forthright title. Surely I’m not the only Powell/Pressburger superfan to have screamed halfway through this statement from Emeric Pressburger about his writing practice, in Kevin Macdonald’s biography: “But if I can help it, I never sit down to write the real script until I know where I’m going and I’ve worked out the rhythm and so on beforehand.” Was that deliberate? I can’t tell.

I Know Where I’m Going! is a movie of romance and myth, comedy and whimsy, but fiercely rooted in reality – and geography. And it is very unusual, maybe entirely unique, in that it is set during wartime but the war is entirely absent and irrelevant, even if the hero is often to be seen wearing his Royal Navy uniform.

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