Depictions of Irish folklore in horror have historically been less about Ireland and more about innumerable leprechauns and banshees who bear little resemblance to their mythological origins. In recent years, Irish horror has had the beginnings of a boom—that is, horror made by the Irish, about the Irish. Features like The Hole in the Ground and, more recently, Oddity are distinctly Irish, undeniably spooky, and don’t pin themselves to overly particular folklore. All You Need is Death is another such offering.
Trading pop culture’s Irish shorthand for a horror larger than known mythology or history, All You Need is Death makes Ireland’s real musical traditions the foundation of cosmic horror. The film depicts a subculture of folk music obsessives who will stop at nothing to get the rarest as-of-yet undocumented songs with the end goal of selling them to collectors who will pay big money to consume and own a slice of tradition. Single-minded in this quest, Anna (Simone Collins)—who is Irish—and Aleks (Charlie Maher)—who is not—stop at nothing to manipulate the surrounding musicians into sharing their songs and stories. When they hear of an old woman who has, “the weirdest songs, the oldest songs, songs nobody has heard of,” they embark on a nightmarish journey to document a song as old as it is rare, breaking taboos to deadly consequences.
What Is ‘All You Need Is Death’ About?

Anna, Aleks, and master song collector Agnes (Catherine Siggins) find themselves in the strange old woman, Rita Concannon’s living room. Rita (Olwen Fouéré) says she might have a song for them, but it has to be dealt with cautiously and with specificity. Anna and Rita both speak Irish. This, along with the revelation that Rita has no daughter and Anna has no mother, sways Rita to sing the song. It’s a real-time demonstration of both the oral and feminine tradition. Aleks is shooed from the room, and Anna takes the batteries out of her recording device. It’s clear that this is bigger than a gig for Anna. But Rita’s song is not a heartwarming lilt; in fact, it’s ominous, echoing, and gut-wrenching. Turning Sean Nós (meaning “old style,” in Irish) sinister and unfolding dark secrets to an ominous trad-inspired score, this folk horror stands apart by warping beloved tradition. Instead of digging up a particular cryptid as modern folk horror tends to do, the film sees existing Irish folk songs give way to the invented song, “Love is a Knife with a Blade for a Handle.” This song—an older form of Irish no longer spoken—serves as a warning that love is not in our control, nor is it inherently pure.
While the structure of these folk-sellers was invented for the film, song collecting is an existing field that has preserved many traditional Irish songs. It’s, of course, linked with the ongoing preservation of Irish—Gaeilge—in the 180 years since population loss due to the Famine and the resulting exacerbation of colonial practices. With films like Oscars-shortlisted Kneecap, the short film An Cailín Ciúin, and the upcoming horror film An Taibhse, there can be no doubt of an Irish revival. All You Need is Death stands apart by disorienting us further with a form of Irish too old for even fluent speakers to keep up with. With a score by Ian Lynch (member of contemporary Irish folk group Lankum and host of Irish trad podcast Fire Draw Near) that feels as traditional as it does menacing, director Paul Duane explores how unsettling traditional taboos get the deeper you dig and the further you push the envelope.

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And push the envelope they do. Pressured by Aleks, Anna attempts to hum what she heard into her recorder, but it turns out there’s no need, as Agnes was deceptively recording it the entire time. As Rita’s singing and the film’s score intertwine to swell over this broken law—both diegetically and non-diegetically—something appears to be watching Rita. An unidentified hand shoves a glass bottle down Rita’s throat, killing her, and Agnes and Aleks get lost in pursuit of understanding entirely, disappearing together. As Anna finds herself kidnapped by Rita’s son Breezeblock Concannon (Nigel O’Neill), Agnes takes taboo a step further with Aleks. The song becomes a siren’s call for both of them, igniting an illicit affair that results in a Lovecraftian pregnancy and a fatal transformation. With real-world revelations about tragedy in Ireland like the Magdalene Laundries in recent memory, this fictional confrontation of tradition echoes tangible fears of what might be uncovered by digging into a lost or buried past.
Folk and Cosmic Horror Share a Fear of the Unknowable

With folk horror’s growing popularity, it’s strange that All You Need is Death should be the first to center something as crucial as traditional music in its horror, but Duane does so with aplomb. He understands that music shapes horror and humanity in ways that cannot be written down, for all the writing down we do about it. The cosmic horror that unfolds is made more sinister, disturbing, and effective by the long-standing spiritual and emotional relationship that has historically shaped every culture. What’s more, the song’s central thesis is that love is as out of our control as music or gods. If these things can be corrupted, what can’t? Some things are greater than us as individuals, but also greater than us as a whole. Isn’t that terrifying?

All You Need Is Death

Release Date

October 9, 2023

Runtime

90 minutes

Director

Paul Duane

Writers

Paul Duane

Producers

Nick Franco

Nigel O’Neill

Breezeblock Concannon