THE Pagan holiday of Imbolc on February 1 makes an apt date for the release on Amazon and iTunes of Paddy Murphy’s horror drama The Perished.
The word ‘Imbolc’ means “in the belly of the Mother”, because the seeds of spring are beginning to stir in the belly of Mother Earth.
And the plot of the Killaloe-based film-maker’s feature, which premiered in 2019, revolves around a young woman’s unplanned pregnancy, contemplation of abortion and subsequent isolation in a house haunted by spirits from its terrible past as a mother and baby home.
For Paddy and the crew it’s a great relief that the film can now be seen in this neck of the woods, having been denied its home premiere in Limerick’s Odeon Cinema in early 2020.
That had been meant to happen on Friday, the 13th of March (he sure knows how to pick appropriate release dates), but a certain pandemic came along and put the kibosh on that.
“For us we’ve been struggling not having it available to see here for the last two years,” Paddy told The Champion. “We’ve had so many people in Ireland and the UK requesting to see it but everything pretty much went into lockdown the day we were supposed to have it.
“We were all excited about that premiere and obviously it never happened. So, we’ve been dying to show the film to people – our families, our friends – and we haven’t been able to.”
It brings the film to a wider audience, of course, and for Paddy – who acknowledges it was a difficult film to market in America, because of the subject matter – it returns the issue of abortion to the agenda at a remove from the raw atmosphere in which it was released.
“I think for Irish audiences no matter what side of the abortion referendum they came down on they’ll have something to take away from this and talk about. A big thing for me, when we made it – it was shot in 2018 right after the referendum – was to keep people talking about it.
“What inspired the film was the discourse on the subject. I noticed friends of mine, family of mine weren’t talking about it, they were just shouting at each other on social media. It felt like there was no middle ground to have a discussion, it’s like ‘you’re either with us or against us’. I knew the situations of family and friends, I knew their stories, why they felt a certain way about things but they wouldn’t speak to each other about their positions.”
Paddy had his own views about the issue as well and admits the early drafts of the film were too close to a pro-choice propaganda piece.
It encouraged him to go out and interview women from both sides of the debate to try, as he says, “to have a bit of empathy for everyone involved and not just the side I agreed with”.
The film was picked up by US-based sales agent and distributor, The Horror Collective, in November of 2019 and has been featured on horror sites like Dread Central, Fangoria and more.
The Amazon Video and iTunes release in the UK and Ireland on February 1 will be followed on other on-demand platforms.
“Sky’s VOD service and the stores like Xbox, PlayStation, Google Play, will all be coming hopefully within a couple of weeks after this release. So if people don’t have Amazon or iTunes, they’ll be able to get it on one of these shortly.”
As well as being the Pagan holiday of Imbolc, February 1, is better known in these parts as the Catholic holiday, St. Brigid’s Day.
Paddy says, “Saint Brigid is believed to have performed the first abortion in Irish lore in 650 AD.
“During the abortion referendum, many pro-choice Irish women, including our lead, Courtney McKeon, got tattoos of the St. Brigid Cross as an acknowledgement of this fierce, proud woman who is ingrained in Irish history.
“In the pagan religion, the goddess Brigit was the source of inspiration for the Catholic saint and so it feels only fitting to be releasing The Perished on Imbolc; the pagan festival dedicated to Brigit, which just so happens to double up as the holiday of St. Brigid too.”
The Perished had its world premiere at the UK’s largest horror film festival, Frightfest in 2019 and subsequently won awards at the Unrestricted View Film Festival in London.
Its North American Premiere at Panic Fest in Kansas in January of 2020.
The score was composed by Shannon native, Evan Murphy, while the poster was designed by acclaimed artist Christopher Shy who created posters for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The Head Hunter, Pet Semetary and more.
Paddy’s follow-up project is currently in post-production and should be hitting the screens in early 2023.
“It’s very different from what I’d normally do,” he says, “it’s a pop-punk romantic comedy called ‘Lulu and the electric dreamboat’.
“Mikey Casey came to me with the script which I loved and asked would I come on board to co-direct it and help develop it, so we shot it in November last year with all the pandemic guidelines.”
Having The Perished available on VOD platforms will help push this new movie as well.
“In film, people always look to your last thing to see where you’re going,” says Paddy.
Now you can check out where he has been, with The Perished on Amazon and iTunes from February 1 at these links.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perished-Courtney-McKeon/dp/B09KGGZWVN/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1XKA8PWCFHZ25&keywords=The+Perished&qid=1643704475&sprefix=the+perished%2Caps%2C45&sr=8-1
https://itunes.apple.com/ie/movie/the-perished/id1506357282