Baobhan Sith – review

Director: David William Hutchison

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

The baobhan sith is a little used fey vampire type from Scotland. They are listed in Bane, who suggests that they are created when a woman dies in childbirth and, much like a Banshee their wail can predict death. Bane describes them having deer hooves for feet and lure victims, dancing with them to exhaust them before draining their blood. They are dealt with using iron, as are most fey. Bane lists shapeshifting – into women the victim knows, crows and fog – this shapeshifting is omitted from the lore in the film.

opening

The opening of the film has illustrations against which a story is told of three brothers, Iain, Duncan and Willy. They are travelling and the two elder brothers cannot understand why Willy bought a cauldron, which he carries. They camp and a woman in white comes out of the trees, she dances with the elder brothers, whilst Willy sleeps, and then slits both their throats with her long talons. Willy awakens, she attacks him but her attack hits the iron cauldron causing her claws to shrivel. She curses Willy’s line, saying that all women in his line will become baobhan sith after the first child is born (we will discover that is in the line by birth or marriage).

Joanna Kaczynska as the baobhan sith

The film proper is a comedy or at least purports to be that way. I wasn’t overly amused and suspect it was both the script and an element of comedic timing that let it down, however, whilst not making me laugh I did warm to some of the characters. It starts on a Scottish Island and the Laird, Jeremiah Clate (Greg Drysdale), is making a movie – though he is not on set. His housekeeper Valerie (Danielle Farrow) is applying makeup to a person (Joanna Kaczynska) we only see from behind but who we hear making inhuman snarls. The DP calls the Laird, but gets too close to the “star” and, despite a warning from Jeremiah, she manages to claw his throat out. Jeremiah calls the person who got him the photographer.

the inflatable

Documentary maker Senga Sutherland (Janet de Vigne) is tending her carnivorous plants (a pitcher plant and a Venus flytrap). She takes a video call from her agent Larry (Andy Nicholls) just as her daughter Freya (Larah Bross) arrives – having travelled from Canada to spend time with mom (and lie low after a sasquatch penis incident). Larry has just arranged with Senga to continue Laird Clate’s film, in exchange for which she will be able to film his Bog Bloater as it flowers for her documentary. She promises Freya a yacht to get there and a mansion to stay in – when they get to the boat it is an inflatable.

the bogman

The gist of the story goes like this. After giving birth to their son Ivan (Daniel Campbell), Jeremiah’s wife Belinda turned into a baobhan sith. He has researched a cure and discovered that should 60 or more people witness the baobhan sith whilst the bog bloater blooms the curse will be lifted. He tried to cure her once with a gala but it went wrong and she killed the 60 guests (the authorities bought the boat accident excuse) and so he has come up with the idea of filming a horror film, Baobhan Sith vs the Bogman (Bogmen being a druid created zombie, designed to protect them from the baobhan sith). Only one problem, they don’t show on camera but he has discovered that petals from the bog bloater sprinkled on them will make them appear and has put petals in the makeup. Senga and Freya, of course, are caught up in the madness.

Greg Drysdale as Jeremiah

For the lore, the filmmakers have changed the death during childbirth origin lore to that of a curse, but kept that link by having the curse activate after childbirth. Iron is deadly (Jeremiah has a shard of Willy’s cauldron, which when pressed against her forehead can knock her unconscious). She has claws rather than fangs but a scratch (or killing someone with the claws) will cause them to turn into a baobhan sith – so long as they are a woman. Because of this we end up with more than one of the vampire and so we also see vampire deaths (presumably through steel rather than pure iron). We also, later, get a chicken baobhan sith and it is killed by bludgeoning with a vibrator. They do have hooves rather than feet.

Freya and Senga

As I mentioned earlier this is billed as comedy and I wasn’t massively amused. The normal caveat around the subjectiveness of comedy needs to be given, of course, but it tried too hard and the gags fell flat for me. However both Janet de Vigne and Larah Bross did come across as personable and kept me with the film. There was something meta about the low budget horror in which they are making an almost no-budget horror and, of course, it is great to see alternative vampire types make an appearance. That didn’t save it for me, unfortunately. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

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