UNWELCOME (2023)

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Jon Wright
Cast: Hannah John-Kamen, Douglas Booth, Colm Meaney, Kristian Nairn
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Rating: M18 (Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 16 March 2023

Synopsis: Maya (Hannah John-Kamen) and Jamie (Douglas Booth) quickly realise they got more than they bargained for when, moving into their new rural country home, they clash with a local family and fearing for their lives, Maya finds herself turning to the woods – and the bloodthirsty creatures within it – to ensure the safety of her unborn child. 

Movie Review:

 ‘Unwelcome’ wants to be several things at the same time.

For the first hour or so, it is primarily a home invasion thriller. An effective prologue establishes the trauma which young couple Maya (Hannah John-Kamen) and Jamie (Douglas Booth) face when the latter is followed by three thugs and are attacked in their own apartment in a housing estate in London. Jamie then conveniently inherits a house in rural Ireland following the passing of his aunt, so the couple relocate to the countryside for some ostensible peace and quiet.

Unfortunately for them, what was meant to be an expedient ‘patch’ job for the house becomes unwittingly complicated when the couple engage the dysfunctional Whelan family. The head of the family (Colm Meaney) insists that he be called ‘Daddy’; and while the eldest of his three children Eoin (Kristian Nairn) is a lumbering man-child who creeps out on Maya, the other two (Chris Walley and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell) are simply rowdy delinquents.

All this while, ‘Unwelcome’ teases the presence of “the little people”, whom Maeve (Niamh Cusack), a close friend of Jamie’s late relative, asks to leave a little offering each night for at a door in the backyard that leads into a dense and mysterious forest. Yet for much of the first hour, we glimpse little of these ‘far darrig’, the leprechaun-like sprites who have their roots in Irish mythology and which come across looking like murderous little Gremlins.

Only past the midway mark does ‘Unwelcome’ morph into the creature feature that it touts to be, as Maya ventures into the forest with Eoin to unexpected consequences. We shan’t spoil the surprise, but suffice to say that the ‘far darrig’ intervene to save Maya from Eoin’s lecherous advances, which sets into motion a chain of events that will not only lead the Whelans to declare war against the couple, but also these impish beings who finally venture out of the forest to make their presence felt.

It is only with the appearance of these goblins that ‘Unwelcome’ finds its groove. Director Jon Wright is clearly a fan of the horror comedies of the 80s and 90s – not only does he rely on a blend of VFX and practical means to bring the goblins to life, he imbues them with an infectious sense of anarchic mischief and lets them loose to exact their unrestrained bloodletting upon the Whelans. It is gleeful fun all right, and Wright tops it off with a gonzo finale that gives new meaning to ‘blood sacrifice’.

As a whole though, Wright struggles to keep a consistent tone throughout the film, resulting in a movie that is a bit all over the shop. In particular, ‘Unwelcome’ cannot quite reconcile its gritty home invasion violence of its first half with the kooky creatures of its subsequent half, despite the pleasures of the latter. To Wright’s credit, his script with co-writer Mark Stay shows attention to character and feelings, particularly that of Maya and Jamie, and the focus on the former gives the finale unexpected emotional heft.

So even though it was intended to be ‘Gremlins meets Straw Dogs’, ‘Unwelcome’ is ultimately a tonally uneven creature feature that only fully embraces its horror-comedy ambition past the halfway mark even as it does manage to cross the line by the time it gets to the finish. Those nostalgic for the sort of 80s horror fare will find something to reminisce about in ‘Unwelcome’; everyone else may find this scattershot effort not quite as welcome a delight as it ought to be.    

Movie Rating:

(As well-intentioned a throwback to the horror comedies of the 1980s as this may be, 'Unwelcome' is a tonally uneven exercise that needs a firmer grasp of scares and laughs)

Review by Gabriel Chong