Synopsis
In 1810 Ireland, a man whose wife has died finds that his daughter is accused of being a witch. A magic fiddler comes to her aid.
The Outcasts
Cast
Studios
Countries
Language
Genre
Releases by Date
Premiere
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Ireland
Source: IMDB (Cork International Film Festival)
Releases by Country
Ireland
12 Nov 1982
- Premiere Source: IMDB (Cork International Film Festival)
Popular reviews
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"Could you come and help me with the feeding of the animals? I'm afraid of the horse biting me"
^Genuine early 19th century Irish pick-up line there.
Heavily redolent with Celtic mythology, The Outcasts is a 1982 folk horror/fantasy set in the rural Ireland of 1810 that deserves to be dusted down and rediscovered. It's a beautiful, beguiling film (which, at the time of its release was the first fully-funded Irish feature film in fifty years) that tells the story of Maura (Mary Ryan), a guileless young girl for whom the world around her fills her with trepidation. Save for her patient and encouraging father, Maura's family and neighbours ridicule her for her naivety, which sets her apart in the…
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A fantastic (in both senses of the word) slow-burn piece of Irish folk-horror from Robert Wynne-Simmons, who wrote the screenplay to The Blood on Satan’s Claw. A cold, damp, and hazy dream in which fiddles are played with bows of dead men’s hair, and the miseries of early 19th century rural life are blamed on anyone that seems a touch “off”.
For a movie that is not only this well-crafted, but of historical significance due to it helping kick-start a revival of the Irish film industry (it was the first fully Irish-funded film to be shot in over 50 years), it’s quite unfortunate that as of the time of this post, there is still no official home release beyond a…
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This is even muddier than Blood on Satan’s Claw. Just as Robin Redbreast once was, this is a forgotten folk horror in need of a BFI makeover. Kudos to Mocata’s Letterboxd review for unearthing this one.
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First time watching this since it aired on irish television in 1982 or ‘83 and it seems even better now than it did then. Coming from the same strange, vanished ecosystem that produced Penda’s Fen, Robin Redbreast, Red Shift and The Owl Service, that uncanny Play For Today world, it must have seemed outdated to cinema audiences in ‘82 (I think the theatrical release ended after one week) but it speaks to 2023 far better than a lot of its contemporaries. Fans of Robert Eggers or the Woodlands Dark…. box set are going to devour this when the restoration comes out next year. I viewed a pretty decent copy from Beta SP but it will look stunning captured from a film print.
I wrote about it here. -
persecution alongside the orchid coast! has everything the witch(2015)'s sluggish masquerade about womanhood was missing but I haven't watched it since highschool so maybe I'm wrong. I do remember the stillness of the movie is sterile, null paranoia all for a 2 minute scooby snack at the end? not my style when it looks like the 2018 jeff goldblum jeep superbowl commercial....
THE STORM - THE AFFLICTED - THE OUTCASTS
where the mountains of mourne come down to the sea, fog pierced by a florescent purpleish/blueish/greenish/reddish tint. even if a better quality version of this film comes out I prefer the moss like grain w/ scanlines that come with ancient transmissions of tragedy
LOVE - BEAUTY - STRENGTHMary Ryan as Maura the very autistic witch and stella maris <3
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Has the ironic feel of the foundational, even when you know it's basically been buried all these years - an alternate history has this as an Irish New Wave's origin. The melancholy ebbs and flows carried on the tide of its stunning score push any minor pacing issues aside; the morality play in fleeting folk horror trappings give it a sense of singularity among Irish films of the age. Props to the IFI archive for a gorgeous restoration job, there was an air in this room to suggest it might spark some imitators yet.
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Restored 2K version screened from DCP. Unfortunately there was a lens problem with the opening scenes so I can't judge how they are meant to look but the rest of the film looks astonishing, dreamlike and precise at the same time. Every time I rewatch it I'm convinced this film gives up more of itself. Did Mad Maura cause or bring on the Great Famine? Is she alive or dead at the end? I'm not sure either of these matters as much as the odd, lopsided love affair at its centre. Maura's love for Scarf Michael and his for her. None of it ends well but it has a rare, passionate beauty that still feels raw.
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Beautiful restoration by the IFI Archive team and free screening to celebrate the upcoming general re-release of a fascinating raw folk tale. It's been a while since I left the cinema in a daze, now on the bus home tempted to miss my stop and end up at the woods near the sea instead.
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What a treat to be among the first people in 40+ years to see this forgotten gem with a cinema audience
Absolutely fascinating film, just so crazy to me that the first fully irish funded film in 50 years, just preceding a whole new era of cinema in this country was such a shockingly artful work of honest to goodness poetic realism and early folk horror, and that it's not a fundamental part of the irish cinema canon!
It fairly plainly bears the roughness of its low budget, but there's something inexplicably powerful about its 80s televisual special effects mixing fluidly with a story of pagan folk magic, uses a lot of simple practical and in-camera effects that end up…
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Ryan and Lally are terrific in this disquieting and melancholic folk horror. Mythical and mystical, the visuals and score are really strong, adding a cinematic quality. Really good.
Really looked like we were going to get a peak at #lallywang but alas.
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I had never seen this before because it's relatively hard to see but it's been given a new 2K restoration and I was at an almost full screening in the Irish Film Institute. My mother has a fairly substantial role in this as the character Triona (I'm biased but I think she's one of the best things in it) and over the years I had been lead to believe, by her, that this was a bad film. It isn't! It's good and identifiably from the person who wrote Blood on Satan's Claw. There is a real craft to it. Like the best folk horror it's dreamlike and elemental and a slow burn. It deserves to be seen by more people and it seems that now it might be.
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If ever a film needed a restoration it is this one. Wynne-Simmons reverence for and understanding of the source material is really impressive.
A landmark in Irish cinema, this film is virtually unknown now even in Ireland which is a travesty.