Boys From County Hell (15)

Bickering father and son, Francie and Eugene Moffat, are part of a road crew who unwitting disturb the resting place of an ancient Irish vampire called Abhartach while clearing the path for a proposed bypass. Abhartach has been the source of feverish local legend for years, traded over pints down the local pub, The Stoker. When true evil targets the unsuspecting community, Eugene, best friend William, his plucky girlfriend Claire and members of the road crew battle to survive the night.

LondonNet Film Review
Boys From County Hell (15)

>During an atmospheric prelude to carnage in writer-director Chris Baugh’s vampire horror comedy, an elderly couple (Stella McCusker, Lalor Roddy) enjoys a leisurely night-time cup of tea. A singlet droplet of blood from one nostril becomes a trickle and then uncontrollable torrents from every orifice, attracted to some unearthly visitor at the front door. Exsanguination is a fitting metaphor for Boys From County Hell, a gleefully violent craic that drains more energy from us in 89 minutes than it replenishes with bone-dry humour or grisly make-up effects…

Baugh’s script has some appealingly droll moments. When the local undertaker struggles to make sense of the mounting devastation over a hot brew, his nervousness as narrator (“I’m not sure where to start…”) is met with delightful indifference by one hungry neighbour. “Maybe with a biscuit or two?” The fractious father-son dynamic brought to life by Nigel O’Neill and Jack Rowan does not deliver the emotional pay-off we expect although one man’s noble sacrifice for the greater good is certainly novel. Affirming Irish stereotypes, alcohol flows almost as freely on screen as blood before the thinly sketched characters rally under a cover of darkness to meet gnarled, ancient evil head-on. The bare bones of an entertaining and irreverent romp are clearly visible, it is just the flesh and muscle that are missing.

Eugene Moffat (Rowan) lives in the sleepy Irish town of Six Mile Hill in a tumbledown farmhouse, which has been in his late mother’s family for generations. Tourists flock to the close-knit community to visit a moss-encrusted burial cairn, rumoured to mark the spot where vampire Abhartach was laid to rest. According to legend, Abhartach’s reign of terror inspired Dublin-born author Bram Stoker to pen Dracula at the tail end of the 19th century. The local pub is named in the writer’s honour.

When fresh blood is spilt on the cairn’s razor-sharp rocks, dormant evil stirs but remains safely contained. Unfortunately, Eugene’s building contractor father Francie (O’Neill) scoffs at superstition and orders his ragtag road crew to disturb the burial site during groundwork for a bypass. The controversial demolition order is poised to evict Eugene’s best friend William (Fra Fee) and his parents (John Lynch, Andrea Irvine) from their home. As night falls, the screaming begins and Eugene and Francie put their differences aside to return Abhartach (Robert Nairne) to the ground, aided by William’s ballsy girlfriend Claire (Louisa Harland) and hirsute drinking buddy SP (Michael Hough).

Boys From County Hell changes some long-established rules of the vampire genre (stakes through the heart, sunlight) but doesn’t replace them with anything startlingly original. Genuine scares are non-existent but special effects ladle on the sticky claret with gusto. Performances are solid despite a paucity of dramatic meat for actors to sink their fangs into.

– Kim Hu