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Outcast chosen for "Best of the Fest" at Edinburgh |
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Tuesday, 22 June 2010 07:55 |
Outcast and Pelican Blood chosen for "Best of the Fest" at Edinburgh
http://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/ticketing/best-of-the-fest |
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Outcast and Pelican Blood at Edinburgh |
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Friday, 11 June 2010 12:05 |
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Outcast directed by Colm McCarthy and Starring James Nesbitt and Kate Dickie is having its UK Premiere at this years Edinburgh Film Festival. Pelican Blood directed by Karl Golden is having its World Premiere. Check out http://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/. |
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Fantastic Films at Cannes |
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Friday, 14 May 2010 17:45 |
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Both Brendan McCarthy and John Mc Donnell of Fantastic Films will be at the Cannes Film Festival from May 15th to May 18th. Outcast is Screening at the Market with Bankside Films and WaKe Wood is being screened by Exclusive. |
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Quiet Earth Review of Outcast |
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Friday, 02 April 2010 07:42 |
Year: 2009
Directors: Colm McCarthy
Writers: Colm McCarthy / Tom McCarthy
IMDB: link
Trailer: link
Review by: rochefort
Rating: 7 out of 10
Fergal (Niall Bruton) and his highly protective mother Mary (Kate Dickie) are constantly on the run, moving from one low-rent U.K. estate to the next, all while being hunted by the ruthless Cathal (James Nesbitt). They're all practicers of witchcraft, Mary using her arcane skills to throw the hunters off the trail, Cathal single-mindedly driven to find them both in the hopes of achieving a higher degree of warlock's power. As Cathal gets closer by the day, Fergal becomes involved with Petronella (Hanna Stanbridge), an earthy projects girl who falls for him immediately. But their young love is threatened not only by Cathal's imminent arrival and Mary's harsh resistance to an unstable female presence in Fergal's life, but also by the strange creature that has appeared in the estate and begun murdering people in the night.
"Outcast" pretty much came out of nowhere and won me over quickly with its dark, moody mix of seedy urban angst and modern-day witchcraft. Think of this as a fringe benefit of the success of the "Harry Potter" series, this one decidedly more for the over-18 set. If you're at all a fan of U.K.-set "Estate" movies (including everything from "Trainspotting", to Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere", to the "Misfits" tv series, up to the recent "Harry Brown"), then you already know the atmosphere on display, and "Outcast" opts for the dingiest possible depths, using grainy sepia night photography, back-alley griminess, and sparse, apocalyptic set design to excellent effect. The plot unfurls at a reasonable pace but doesn't really drag, and tells essentially three stories: The first concerns Mary and Fergal's ongoing struggle to keep moving without being discovered by the coven they've abandoned for mysterious reasons; the second deals with Fergal's rapidly encroaching puberty and the dangers that Mary believes will accompany his passage into manhood; and the third focuses on Cathal, himself an apparent example of a mature warlock's worst case scenario.
Bruton and Dickie make a convincingly creepy mother and son, their scenes imbued with a discomforting sexual underpinning made all the creepier by the clever way the script slowly and casually dispenses clues as to the true nature of their relationship. Petronella is eye-poppingly cute and feisty, and her portrayal initially comes across as the standard dead-end projects girl, but she finds moments here and there that inject an unexpected vulnerability, and in the end it's easy to believe that Fergal would risk so much to be with her. But it's Nesbitt's villain Cathal that steals the show. Nesbitt as the bad guy is just an easy win; he's got a one of a kind screen presence and owns no matter if he's playing sympathetic ("Bloody Sunday") or dark ("Five Minutes of Heaven"). Here he's playing extremely dark, his Cathal a mixture of sweaty desperation and malevolent treachery.
Key scenes with both hunter and hunted show the step-by-step procedure of their magic, each full of nice little details about how this or that spell is cast or protective glamour is achieved. This is the real bread and butter of the pic, and the filmmakers know that if you're going to tell a story about witches and warlocks, there had better be witchcraft, dammit, and on this front "Outcast" consistently delivers. There's nary a black hood or shiny pagan broadsword in sight, either, the emphasis throughout on "household" magic (albeit of a kind that seems to require the user always be naked) rather than pyrotechnics or multicolored lazer beams. The only real overtly fantastic element is in the "beast" that haunts the estate, and this may be a letdown for some, but I found it enjoyable both in its execution and as the final answer of the puzzle.
A festival gem if ever there was one, "Outcast" probably won't prove to be much more than a modest success, so it's likely you'll have to work a little to track this one down. There's not enough spectacle on display to attract a stateside theatrical run, and the consistently (even oppressively) dark tone will probably relegate it to a straight-to-disc release, hopefully by the likes of somebody like Anchor Bay, who would at least know how to treat this one with the respect it deserves. It's beyond ironic that the majority of magic- and witchcraft-themed movies in this day and age are targeted to families and the 'tween market, so "Outcast" is weird in that it's almost a basic return to form, a film about the dark stuff that's meant for adults. Uneven in places and definitely not perfect, but done well enough to make you wish more filmmakers would follow its lead. |
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OUTCAST screens again in Best of the Fest |
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Sunday, 21 March 2010 13:07 |
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following on from its highly successful screenings in South By Southwest Fantastic, Outcast Directed by Colm Mc Carthy is to screen in Austin,Texas at the Alamo Drafthouse at Sth Lemarr Blvd as part of the "Best of the Fest" from SXSW. The screening takes place at 10pm on Monday March 22nd. |
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Horror Squad previews Wake Wood |
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Monday, 15 March 2010 20:21 |
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http://www.horrorsquad.com/2010/01/09/hammer-films-leads-us-into-the-wake-wood/
Hammer Films Leads us into 'The Wake Wood'
01.09.10 By: Alison Nastasi0 Comments
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Throw Pagan rituals, wacky villagers and Hammer Films all in a pot and you're cooking up a whole lot of 'yes please' for me. The newly resurrected studio has released stills from their upcoming thriller, The Wake Wood, directed by David Keating. The film stars Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle and Timothy Spall.
The Wake Wood tells the tale of a couple grieving over the loss of their nine-year-old daughter, Alice, who was brutally killed by a crazed dog. Vet Patrick (Gillen) and pharmacist Louise (Birthistle) relocate to a remote town known as Wake Wood. While there, they learn of a Pagan ritual from village leader Arthur (Spall) that will bring Alice back to them, but only for three days. What will they do when it's time for Alice to leave them once again?
The film was shot in Ireland so expect a killer backdrop. Hopefully Hammer has conjured a story to compliment the surroundings. Keating was a writer for one of my favorite films, Into the West, starring my boyfriend Gabriel Byrne. It's a magical little movie and I hope Keating can rock some of that mojo for Hammer. Check out more images from The Wake Wood at Dread Central.
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Tags: David Keating, DavidKeating, hammer films, Hammer studios, HammerFilms, HammerStudios, The Wake Wood, TheWakeWood
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World Premiere Outcast at SXSW review. |
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 13:24 |
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World Premiere of Outcast at the Alamo Drafthouse. The following review is from Harry Knowles of Aintitcoolnews
OUTCAST
This is a pretty damn unsettlingly disturbing little picture out of Scotland & Ireland. It involves Celtic Black Magic & Witchery in modern day Edinburgh, Scotland.
This film is nasty in a way that's just hard to describe. There's a reality to what is happening that just feels valid. I can imagine this shit as being the real thing. The use of strange symbols and incantations, the weird fucking audio that accompanies these rituals and spell weaving ceremonies and the fucking creature is just 7 sides of nasty.
You have a Mother and her young son - who have decided to stop running and try to set up some manner of existence. Though, what their grand scheme of peace could possibly be, given the forces in pursuit... well, it is unlikely at best.
To make you understand the sort of magic at play here... The people trying to track the mother & son down are trying to find them. To do this, this one fellow does this real eerie whistle, which summons a pigeon to fly to them. Then the badass with weirdo ancient looking tattoos all down his back... guts and spills the entrails of the bird on the ground. Then - whilst chanting and giving the entrails a mean stare... they kinda start to do some creepy shit that tells them they're 9 miles to the South of their prey. But there's rules. They have to dispose of their sacrifice so that it doesn't fall into their prey's hands, cuz if it does. It ain't good.
There's a lot of strange nasty little things that are done like that. Things you have to do in order to be granted a vision, a power or protection. I love that. I love rules to the supernatural. It's like tubing and texture on the outside of my favorite spaceships. It's just something I love. In a way - it exists in a world adjacent to things like CURSE OF THE DEMON and DRAG ME TO HELL. But it isn't a demon summoning picture. It's just other shit that happens in a world where you most likely can summon a demon.
There's a young budding romance, that's probably not the wisest thing, but it feels a bit like... a TERMINATOR movie. Imagine if John Connor was being pursued romantically in the midst of bad shit happening. But imagine it being done perfectly real feeling. That's the romance in this film. It feels honest and true. Like everything else in the movie it feels right.
This isn't a film that I imagine will ever get a wide release. But damn if it shouldn't be seen. It is a peculiar and disturbing horror film. An excellent film. See it at all costs.
So that was my first day of SXSW 2010. See y'all tomorrow!
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Saturday, 06 March 2010 12:16 |
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Outcast the first feature film of hot Director Colm Mc Carthy is having its world Premier at SXSW on 12th March. Outcast stars James Nesbitt and Kate Dickie and is being sold by Bankside Films. |
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ZONAD wins best Original Score at IFTA's |
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Wednesday, 03 March 2010 11:52 |
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Brian Byrne won the IFTA for best Original Score. Zonad hits cinemas in Ireland on March 17th |
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Outcast opens SXSW Fantastic Section |
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Friday, 05 February 2010 22:17 |
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Outcast, Fantastic Films new movie from Director Colm Mc Carthy has been chosen as the opening film
in the SX Fantastic section of the South by South West Film Festival in Texas screening in March. More details to follow. |
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