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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Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party review – documentary is a warts-and-all sonic assault

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Portrait of post-punk band’s debauched journey from Melbourne to London is a scuzzy time capsule filled with juicy revelations about Nick Cave and co

Fans of the legendary post-punk band the Birthday Party will take to Ian White’s new film like pigs to slop, relishing the debaucherous badassery of its subjects and their drug-addled journey to greatness.

The uninitiated will probably also have a good time with this full-tilt boogie, sonic assault of a documentary, which paints a warts-and-all portrait of the band and its members: Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Rowland S Howard, Phill Calvert and Tracy Pew. These wrong-side-of-the-tracks artists played by their own rules, spat in the face of decorum and decency, and through a haze of putrid indulgence succeeded against the odds.

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