All You Need Is Death
Given the sheer importance of sound and music to horror as a genre, you'd think there would be more films that concentrate more on them. However, stepping up to try and level the playing field is Irish filmmaker Paul Duane, whose picture "All You Need Is Death" is less folk horror and more folk music horror.
The film starts with the enigmatic pair of Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) as they wander from place to place searching for what is dubbed "the new alchemy" - unheard folk songs. After attending a talk on field recording, the pair meet Agnes (Catherine Siggins), who spins a tale of a singer in a remote part of Ireland who may have a song nobody has heard outside of her family. The trio end up at the house of Rita (the fierce and fabulousn Olwen Fouéré) and are given two rules before they hear the song: There is to be no recording, and Aleks must leave - the song is not for the ears of men.
Of course, this is a horror movie, so both of those rules end up being broken, and this is where the film gets both weirder and more fascinating. What was originally an inheritance of sorts to be passed down from generation to generation and woman to woman ends up being something far more malevolent and virulent, especially when it gets into Aleks' ears. Further substance is revealed when they attempt to translate it; it happens to be in a language that came before Irish and tells the tale of a medieval king spurned by his lover for a younger man, and the tragedy that befell them when he unleashed his vengeance. Several flashbacks illustrate the grisly tale, and they match well with Ian Lynch's song. Lynch, of the excellent band Lankum, also composed and recorded the score.
Duane's film initially feels like a slow-burn, but quickly gains speed when the trio steal the song. The subsequently unchained spirits unfortunately turn their first attention towards Rita, who is dispatched in a manner that might have the great Lucio Fulci fistpumping in his grave, leaving her son Breeze (Nigel O'Neill) to search for the three on his own crusade of bloody vengeance. Breeze is a fascinating character however, and Duane expertly plays with preconceptions as Breeze begins as similar stock to Mick Taylor of "Wolf Creek" to a somewhat awkward but goodhearted rural detective. If only "Midsomer Murders" was like this.
"All You Need Is Death" unfurls itself with surprising patience before it unleashes a compelling final act that can only be described as Lynchian weirdness. But what's more fascinating is the way Duane uses folklore as a framework to explore the various branches of the heritage and legacy of women, the encroachment of masculinity upon that, and the intermingling of sex and power and the use of both as methods of control. Gender is also touched upon, although not perhaps as successfully.
Duane's direction is as assured as you would want, and the picture feels slickly put together but still feels homemade, if that makes sense - at times it feels like you're watching found footage. Collins makes a sympathetic heroine of sorts, Maher less so, but it's Fouéré that makes such a huge impression in such a short time that you almost miss her. Unsurprisingly for a film like this, the layers of sound design are superb, as is Lynch's score that echoes the pure dread of Tobe Hooper and Wayne Bell's music from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." There are few complaints as such; one concerns an enigmatic character who only makes a single appearance at the beginning, although the last thing you'd want is for a Marvel-esque post-credit scene to explain further.
"All You Need Is Death" is an impressive slice of horror that evolves from several subgenres to become its own thing. It's fiercely weird and utterly entrancing, and the kind of fresh independent horror the twenty-first century keeps throwing at us. The only question is what Paul Duane's follow-up song will be.
