A century after Bram Stoker introduced Dracula to the world, Irish storytellers are again conjuring vampires – as well as zombies, ghosts, changelings and grisly, mysterious diseases – and this time on the big screen.
Young film directors are channelling Ireland’s dark folklore and contemporary social ills into a wave of horror films that are finding mainstream audiences overseas.
The country’s small film industry has made 20 horrors in the past six years, with another two due for release in autumn. The output ranges from slashers to horror-comedies to psychological thrillers with supernatural elements.
Four of the 11 films shown at the FrightFest festival in Glasgow earlier this year were made in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The US network TBS, part of Warner Bros, is turning a 2019 film, Extra Ordinary, into a TV series.
