Steeped in Irish vampire tradition, writer/director Chris Baugh's horror comedy Boys From County Hell has as much use for Dracula's cinematic offspring as its characters do. That is to say, they have a bone to pick with the fictional count's creator, Bram Stoker, who may have drawn inspiration from local lore, and with the subgenre's many tropes -- most of which, it turns out, are of no use against the actual undead.
In Boys From County Hell, the sleepy village of Six Mile Hill, Ireland, is caught between its dubious past and an uncertain future, as a new highway threatens to destroy the cairn said to mark the grave of the legendary vampire Abhartach. It's that pile of stones that attracts a trickle of tourists, who in turn are pranked by indolent Eugene Moffat (Jack Rowan) and his friends from the local pub, The Stoker (yes, named after the Dracula author, who may have slept there).
But despite the mockery, and good-natured shakedown, of unsuspecting tourists, there's a sense among the locals that there's some truth to the legend. That soon becomes undeniable following a tragedy that pushes the reluctant Eugene to go to work for his no-nonsense father, Francie (Nigel O'Neill), whose company is hired to construct the road. The subsequent destruction of the cairn doesn't merely doom Six Mile Hill's tourism prospects, it unleashes an unseen evil determined to kill every last resident.
A Belfast native, Baugh (Bad Day for the Cut) set out to create a film that was true to both his roots and to those of the modern vampire, and he succeeds. Boys From County Hell strips away more than a century of filmmaking glamour -- from Bela Lugosi's Dracula to Tom Cruise's Lestat to Robert Pattinson's Edward Cullen -- and reveals something horrifying. Baugh's Abhartach (played by Robert Nairne) harks back to the revenants of European lore; he's a decaying, inhuman wight, not a handsome, pale-skinned gentleman who charms house guests and high-school girls.
However, Abhartach spends little time onscreen. In the tradition of some of horror's most effective monsters, from Steven Spielberg's Jaws to Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers (with which Boys From County Hell shares similarities), this supernatural threat is perhaps its most menacing in the shadows. That's not only because Abhartach's absence ratchets up tension, and gives the film's central characters room to shine as they piece together the puzzle, but also because this vampire doesn't need to prowl Six Mile Hill, seeking out victims.
While Eugene, Francie, Claire (Louisa Harland) and S.P. (Michael Hough) test and dismiss virtually every way movies have taught them to kill vampires, Baugh subverts more than a century's worth of horror cinema by introducing new -- or, rather, old -- elements of lore.
But Boys From County Hell isn't really about Abhartach; it's about Eugene, and his relationships with his friends and father. Luckily, they're exactly the type of people with whom you'd want to fight the undead, and then grab a pint afterward.
With its easy blend of horror and humor, to say nothing of its backwater setting, Baugh's film certainly evokes the 1981 classic An American Werewolf in London -- and with a dig at a Canadian tourist's reference to the moors, it may even invite comparison. Although Boys From County Hell may not be a successor to An American Werewolf in London, it's certainly a distant relative (and more welcome at any reunion than An American Werewolf in Paris).
Written and directed by Chris Baugh, Boys From County Hell stars Jack Rowan, Nigel O’Neill, Louisa Harland, Michael Hough, Fra Fee, Robert Nairne, Andrea Irvine and John Lynch. The film premieres Thursday on Shudder.