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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Re-vamped: British horror film-makers Hammer and Amicus are back from the dead

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The British studios, which filled screens with bloody fangs, gothic monsters and heaving bosoms, have been resurrected for the 21st century

Think of a classic horror film with an archetypal character such as Frankenstein or Dracula, or a movie with a name that does what it says on the tin, like Tales from the Crypt or Beyond the Grave, and the chances are you are thinking of a product by one of the “twins of evil”.

Hammer and Amicus were the studios that defined British horror cinema and bestrode the 1960s and 1970s, employing a wealth of British acting talent including Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Casts included names such as Michael Gough, Ralph Bates, Ingrid Pitt, Patrick Magee and Joan Collins.

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