Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet.
Long forgotten films are two a penny. But what about films that rarely made it out of their own country? And even then when they were released in their native country they only received a limited theatrical release and then were gone forever? It’s almost like they never existed.
The Outcasts, according to folklore, was released in the Republic of Ireland for one week in 1982. It then received a small VHS release a year later. Then had one showing on Britain’s Channel 4 TV channel in 1984. After that, The Outcasts disappears. Until now! Some forty years later we finally get to see this film from Robert Wynne-Simmons, who not only directed but also scripted it (he also scripted the iconic folk horror The Blood on Satan’s Claw). Set in rural Ireland during the 19th-century where inhabitants are suffering from poverty yet believe in many superstitions. Maura, a young introverted farm girl is suspected of Witchcraft because she believes she has found a mystical world of imagination via a mysterious wanderer known as Scarf Michael.
Atmospheric is the most obvious word to describe The Outcasts. It swirls with mysticism and intrigue. Maura is coming of age in a place where nobody cares for it. She’s either a girl not young enough to marry or she is a woman that can be married off, hopefully into money. But Maura has found something more. She has found solace in a man who opens her limited world view to the mysterious and the esoteric. It’s a journey the Maura goes on and one that doesn’t sit well with the locals who believe she is talking codswallop when it comes to other worlds and imagination. As Maura goes further down the rabbit hole she must fight against friends and family to make them understand that she isn’t mad. Instead, she is finding a new way of life to deal with the wretched life she is currently leading. This movie is about a woman fighting back against male oppression and the traditional way of life that she sees is antiquated even in 19th-century Ireland. Her family see her as simple-minded. They don’t see her as a whole part of the family. Especially at the beginning of the film when her sister is getting married in a wedding orchestrated by the local fearsome matchmaker Keenan. The more Maura is pushed out by her family the more she falls under the spell of Scarf Michael. Eventually sleeping in a graveyard with the mystical man. To which, upon her return the next day to the grotty homestead, she is accused of Witchcraft. From there the film, and Muara’s life, spirals into imagination land.
The rugged lands of Ireland really help make this film look & feel like an atmospheric Folk Horror. The grubby buildings and the squelching mud equally make this a bleak looking movie. The 2k restoration has brightened up some bits of the film. But I think it helps keeping it very close to the way it was shot. It really puts you right in the mire of rural Ireland during that time and what it was like to just try and get by day-to-day. It’s got that eery vibe that Tarkovsky’s Stalker has. Wastelands/scrublands that the characters trudge through with nothing else in sight except more bleak landscapes and the sounds of emptiness.
If you are a fan of Folk Horror then The Outcasts should be on your viewing list. It might not have the same writing prowess as The Blood on Satan’s Claw, yet Wynne-Simmons has crafted an un-nerving film that may show its low budget roots. However, it wears them well. Dark, disturbing and bleak.
THE OUTCASTS is released on Blu Ray from the 23rd September 2024 from the BFI.
