By Paul Mount
The horror of home invasion meets the myths and legends of Irish folklore in this latest effort from Jon Wright, who impressed with 2012’s monster horror comedy Grabbers. Unwelcome is much darker fare, unafraid to, at times, be downright unpleasant.
When the sanctity of their London home is violated in an attack by vicious thugs, Jamie (Douglas Booth) and his pregnant wife Maya (Hannah John-Kamen) flee to Ireland to the ramshackle country home Jamie inherited from his recently-decease great aunt. They’re warned of a tradition that dictates they leave a ‘blood offering’ out every night at the back door for the ‘Red Caps’ that live in the woods. Accepting it as a quaint local superstition, the couple cheerfully complies and set about restoring their home with the help of the only nearby builders available: the Whelan family, whose patriarch (Colm Meaney) insists on being called ‘Daddy’, even as his three children Aisling, Killian, and Eoin treat the couple and their property with utter disrespect.
Unwelcome isn’t the cute monsters-on-a-rampage film promised by its trailer. In places, it’s pitilessly cruel; Jamie and Maya are doomed not to enjoy the safety and sanctity of the family home that we’re all entitled to. Creepy, unnerving, and sometimes quite brutal, Unwelcome explodes into weirdness in its last act, as the couple is forced to deal with both the very worst of human nature and something much more inhuman that emerges from the darkness. It’s a film that won’t appeal to all tastes, but Unwelcome is striking and singular and a very welcome addition to the ranks of quirky British genre movies.
