Starring Hannah John-Kamen, Douglas Booth, Colm Meaney, Kristian Nairn, Chris Walley, Niamh Cusack and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell. Written by Jon Wright and Mark Stay. Directed by Jon Wright. Produced by Piers Tempest, Peter Touche and Lauren Cox. Tempo Productions/Ingenious Media/Rococo Films

Several months after they suffer a violent home invasion incident in their inner city London apartment, young couple Maya (John-Kamen) and Jamie (Booth) eagerly move to a village in Ireland when Jamie inherits a house from his recently deceased aunt. To fix a hole in the roof, they hire the Whelan family building firm, but these four individuals prove to be a loutish, aggressive and strange bunch. To add to their woes, Maya and Jamie are informed by local landlady Maeve (Cusack) that their late aunt had believed in the ‘old ways’ and used to leave blood offerings at the bottom of her garden to appease the Little People… and Maeve emphasises that these creatures, also known as the Far Darrig or Redcaps, are not jolly little elves: they’re hungry and they’ll need feeding every day. Not wanting Maeve to be trespassing onto their land to continue this tradition, Maya promises that she will regularly leave a plate of raw liver near the garden gate… which leads into the vast woodland beyond, where a small, domed stone building lurks amongst the trees…

Hannah John-Kamen is on top form as the heavily pregnant Maya, nicely balancing her character’s varied emotions, ranging from happiness (especially when she discovers she’s pregnant), to fearfulness, to (when required) boldness, as she faces various challenges throughout the story. Douglas Booth, whether intentionally or not, comes across as rather irritating playing the pleasant-but-wimpy Jamie, who is always striving, but failing, to stand up to the bullies in his life. Niamh Cusack, as Maeve, manages to make her friendly warnings regarding the Redcaps come across as sincere and believable, and Colm Meaney seems to be having fun playing ‘Daddy’ Whelan, the rough patriarch  overseeing his obnoxious adult kids, who are all pretty weird but played straight by Chris Walley, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell and Kristian Nairn.

There’s a pleasant use of lush colours in the film, with cinematographer Hamish Doyne-Ditmas ensuring the surrounding countryside is verdantly green and the sun is always golden. The large garden seems to be a big indoor set most of the time, and this slight artificiality adds to the twisted fairytale look and feel of the production. 

Director Jon Wright, who also made the wonderful sci-fi-horror-comedy GRABBERS (2012), has described UNWELCOME as ‘GREMLINS meets STRAW DOGS’, and this production does, to a degree, fit this description, though it seems that Wright couldn’t quite make up his mind whether to make his film a gritty home invasion movie, or a horror movie, or a creature feature comedy. GRABBERS certainly balanced its horror and humour elements better, but UNWELCOME does prove to be an enjoyably watchable yarn. 

The UK/Irish production holds back from showing the Redcaps till later in the tale and, when the Little People do make their appearance, the movie’s entertainment value really rockets skywards!

The sharp-nosed, pointy-eared, caped Redcaps are so much fun! They are violent, belly-slitting, dagger-throwing little buggers, but they’re also almost sweet somehow due to their interactions with each other. These Little People will help you out if you ask a favour… but you must pay a price! This last point, of course, leads to a finale in which Maya must prove herself to be really ruthless in order to get her child back.

The first time we see one of the Far Darrig properly is when one of the cowled critters lets itself into the house, walks over to Maya, and presents her with the severed head of a would-be rapist in a plastic bag. The lil’ Redcap in this scene looks great, thanks to the fact the wee fellow is obviously a fine example of the use of practical effects. Soon we get to see more of the Little People, and they all boast different facial features!

These superbly crafted Redcaps are played by short actors wearing costumes and latex masks. For a lot of the shots, this simple approach (which included the use of double-sized sets) is enough, with no VFX required. When one Redcap is hacked in the head with a cleaver, the filmmakers simply smash the cleaver into a puppet! But, when the Redcaps are required to talk, or to emote, the filmmakers replace the masks and use the minimum amount of 3D VFX possible. This approach, for me, looks far better than the use of CGI-only creatures: the in-camera effects and the post production digital VFX here work wonderfully together! And this all helps make the violent set piece showdown towards the end of the movie so memorable, when Maya (who ends up going into labour!) and Jamie take-on the psycho Whelan family in their home… and the Redcaps join the bloody skirmish too!

Perhaps UNWELCOME underplays the comedy a little, and it doesn’t quite hit the mark when it comes to the horror moments sometimes, but it is entertaining. And I really enjoyed the finale, which reaches an unexpectedly triumphant, strange & very exuberant climax! 

But, yeah, for me it is the excellent Redcaps (which remind me, design-wise, of the illustrations seen in the book Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee) that help make the movie such a satisfying fantasy-horror picture!

SOME BEHIND THE SCENES SHOTS.

The Prosthetics Studio, run by Shaune Harrison and Paula Anne Booker-Harrison, created the Redcap masks and other prosthetics for UNWELCOME. Take a look at these beauties…