Bernice M. Murphy
This review contains spoilers
The current “folk horror revival” has sparked a welcome resurgence of interest in lesser-known and previously neglected creative works. One of the most intriguing – and least seen – is the Irish film The Outcasts, which, “after a short theatrical run, a limited 1983 VHS release, and an airing on Channel 4 in 1984” went unseen until earlier this year, when the Irish Film Institute’s archival team undertook a “challenging” digital restoration project[1]. It was written and directed by Robert Wynne-Simmons, who more famously, also wrote The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971). Set in the Irish countryside in the early 1800s, The Outcasts furthers the association with rurality and agriculture which characterizes many significant folk horror narratives. It also subtly draws upon the relationship between folk horror and settler colonialism explored in the likes of Kier-La Janisse’s Woodland’s Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021).
The protagonists here are impoverished Catholic peasants. Their landscape is dominated by sullen skies, bright green fields, and mud. They live in thatched stone cottages and farm jealously coveted land. As the title suggests, The Outcasts has a classic “blame it on the scapegoat” arc in which responsibility for the misfortunes of an isolated community is assigned to a designated outsider(s). The primary scapegoat here is a young woman named Maura O’Donnell (Mary Ryan). Maura lives with her widowed father Hugh (Don Foley) and her sisters, Breda (Brenda Scallon) and Janey (Bairbre Ní Chaoimh). Janey is pregnant because of a dalliance with the heir to the farm next door, Eamon (Máirtín Jaimsie). The drama which ensues sparks the film’s initial plot developments.
Mary Ryan as Maura, from IFI
It is quickly established that Maura is strikingly different from those around her. She is, one character condescendingly declares, “One of God’s infirmities,” and “not the sort you would take home for a wife.” Maura is sweet-natured and naïve. She is also unusually attuned to the natural world. A dream sequence in which she clambers up a hillside clad in a nightdress anticipates the almost ecstatic relationship between an excluded young woman and the natural environment seen more recently in films such as Robert Eggers’ The Witch: A New-England Folk Tale (2015) and Malgorzata Szumowska’s The Other Lamb (2019).
Throughout the film, fears that the community’s womenfolk will engage in behaviors which “shame” their families frequently arise. In the opening scenes, Maura’s errant sister Janey is banished because she “was a stupid foolish girl and she did things.” Although Hugh is also depicted as a loving man trying to do the best for his daughters, the fear that Maura too will go “astray” has dire consequences.
Janey returns once it is agreed that she will marry Eamon. Their coming marriage means that music is needed, and it is at this point that the film’s other “outcast,” the mysterious fiddler known as “Scarf Michael” (Mick Lally) is introduced. “Scarf Michael” first appears as a masked musician at the wedding: although he initially terrifies Maura, the two become involved in the celebration’s aftermath. Maura is coerced into heading into the countryside with other young adults who are interested in drinking and in illicit sexual relations. (Indeed, one of the striking things about the film is its frank sexual content: this earthy realism definitely contrasts with the oppressive social conservatism of mainstream 1980s Irish culture.)
Mick Lally as ‘Scarf Michael’
Upon seeing Maura subjected to the cruelty of her peers, Michael uses his powers as a “conjurer’” to prank the offenders, and the two subsequently spend the night together, walking and talking until daylight. Maura’s fear of the physically imposing stranger turns to fascination. When he removes his straw mask, she realizes, “You’re only a man.” And yet, Michael is, like Maura, “different.” He claims that he was drowned in the sea by local men but somehow came back to life. Maura wants to remain with him, but Michael insists that she return to her family, for, “if you stay with me, you’ll never, ever see them again.”
However, the damage has already been done. Rumors that Maura was “seen consorting with an evil man” abound, and pre-existing communal tensions and jealousies mean that it isn’t long before she is also suspected of witchcraft. Unexpected local deaths and a potentially ruinous potato blight mean that it isn’t long before the locals again decide to rid the community of the strange young woman whom they hold responsible for their misfortune. Despite the protestations of the (surprisingly sympathetic) local Priest (Paul Bennett), and the desperate protests of her father, Maura is kidnapped, with the intent that she too be drowned. However, here, as elsewhere, The Outcasts resists a conventional narrative trajectory. Rather than die, she is saved by Michael’s magic, and the two embark upon a loving relationship which is both romantic and that of a mentor and mentee. Transformed by her experiences, Maura declares, “I want to know what you know – however bad it is!” The remainder of the film progresses towards an eerily poignant conclusion in which it seems as if this same otherworldly knowledge, once granted, has also separated Maura from those whom she most loves forever.
Whereas a less nuanced film would have been tempted to more crudely link the poverty and brutality of some of the characters here to their status as violently subjugated colonial subjects, this is not the case in The Outcasts. Instead, their sorely restricted horizons are more subtly depicted. The looming horror of the 1840s potato famine is also intelligently evoked, as are the ways in which Irish society would, for generations to come, punish women and girls deemed “unfit” to live freely within their own communities. The Outcasts is therefore well worth seeing not only because of its intriguing creative lineage but because it is a lyrical, evocative and genuinely ambitious work which, like its title characters, is unafraid to tread its own rocky but rewarding path.
The Outcasts is currently only available in Ireland via the IFI@home platform, but hopefully renewed interest in the film will help bring about a wider release.
Bernice M. Murphy is Associate Professor in Popular Literature at the School of English, Trinity College Dublin. She has published books and articles on topics related to American Gothic and horror narratives and is an expert on the work of Shirley Jackson. She has also published several previous articles on American Folk Horror. Her most recent book is The California Gothic in Fiction and Film (2022), and her current work-in-progress explores the relationship between true crime and popular literature.
Notes
[1] Brady, Tara, “The Outcasts: Lost Irish Folk Horror Film is Gloriously Restored,” The Irish Times, 31 May 2024. Details of the restoration project were disclosed by the IFI’s Sunniva O’Flynn during her introduction to a screening held at the Irish Film Institute on May 31st 2024.
