Ireland has produced some solid eco-horror, from the grotesque Isolation, about genetically modified cattle, to the atmospheric Without Name, from Vivarium director Lorcan Finnegan. But one film I don’t see talked about enough is Neasa Hardiman’s Sea Fever, the tale of a budding biology student (Hermione Corfield) who joins the crew of a commercial trawler to complete her doctoral fieldwork.

When the skipper sneakily steers them into an exclusion zone to fish, they are attacked by a many-tentacled creature that soon wreaks havoc on the boat—and on the bodies of its crew.
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Sea Fever has a lot going for it: stomach-churning eye trauma, eye-catching (no pun intended) special effects, and a thought-provoking story about the ethics of protecting the natural world at the expense of human life. It isn’t perfect, but at a lean 90 minutes, it’s worth hopping on board and letting it guide you into uneasy waters.

While it boasts the dubious honor of having disappointed Clive Barker so much that he decided to direct his next project (Hellraiser ) himself, the lovably goofy Rawhead Rex is a great option to stick on if you’re spending St. Patrick’s Day with a few mates who just want to yell stuff at the screen.
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George Pavlou directed Rawhead Rex from a screenplay by Barker, adapting the story of the same name from his third Books of Blood anthology. The film concerns a rural Irish community under siege from an ancient pagan deity. The creature design is charmingly cheesy, the action moves thick and fast, and our old pal Rexie pisses on a priest. Are you seated yet? Because I certainly am.

If you’re looking to get proper creeped out this St. Patrick’s Day, you can’t go wrong with director Kate Dolan’s You Are Not My Mother. It’s the first of two movies on this list concerning changelings—malevolent fairy folk who take the place of a human, usually a baby or young child—which are a staple of Celtic folklore.

However, what makes this film unique is that it explores an aspect of changeling mythology rarely seen outside of Ireland: the idea that one of these beings can take the place of a fully grown adult, a belief that even led some families to murder.
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In You Are Not My Mother, depressed single mother Angela (Carolyn Bracken, who we’ll be hearing from again) abruptly disappears, leaving her car abandoned in a field. Her daughter, Char (Hazel Doupe), is understandably concerned, but that concern doesn’t dissipate when Angela seemingly returns home.

This Angela is… different. She may not even be human. A disquieting meditation on the grim realities of motherhood that previous generations may have blamed on the fae, Dolan’s film is a serious slow burner, but stick with it, because it will get under your skin.

Director Conor McMahon has made a few bangers over the years, including the microbudget zombie movie Dead Meat (released under FANGORIA’s own Gorezone label in 2004) and the vampire horror-comedy Let the Wrong One In. But for my money, Stitches is the way to go for anyone in the market for over-the-top kills this St. Patrick’s Day.
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Comedian Ross Noble stars as the titular Stitches, a naff children’s party clown who dies horribly when two little brats play a prank on him. Years later, he returns from the dead to enact his revenge against the now-teenaged pranksters and their friends.

When you see Stitches removing brains with an ice cream scoop and inflating a kid’s head like a balloon, I think you’ll agree with my assessment that he’s one of horror’s most underrated evil clowns.

The most recent entry on this list, writer-director Aislinn Clarke’s Fréwaka, is notable for being one of only two horror films spoken almost entirely in Irish Gaelic (the other, John Farrelly's An Taibhse, will hopefully get a US release this year—watch this space).

Clarke made a splash with her first film, found footage chiller The Devil’s Doorway, and deftly avoids the sophomore slump with Fréwaka, a superb slice of folk horror following a nursing student caring for an agoraphobic woman who is terrified of the Na Sídhe, mythological entities that she believes abducted her decades before.
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Much like You Are Not My Mother, Fréwaka taps deeply into Irish generational trauma and its relationship with folklore. For more eerie Irish folk horror, check out Hammer Horror’s early attempt at resurrection, 2009’s Wake Wood, as well as the singular All You Need Is Death, a film rooted in traditional Irish folk music.

There are some heavy entries on this list. Extra Ordinary is not one of them. From filmmakers Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, this heartfelt horror comedy seemed to fly under most folks’ radars, possibly because it came out mere days after the US declared a state of emergency and began implementing lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But just because we can go out drinking on St. Patrick’s Day now doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stay home and watch this deliciously goopy underseen gem instead.
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In Extra Ordinary, driving instructor Rose (Maeve Higgins) refuses to use her special talent—communicating with the dead—after a childhood accident got her father killed.

That all changes when she meets Martin (Barry Ward), whose late wife refuses to move on. All the while, one-hit-wonder musician Christian Winter (SNL’s Will Forte) is attempting to claw his way back to stardom by way of a satanic ritual involving Barry’s daughter. Much ectoplasm-regurgitating action follows.

Pair it with Chris Baugh's Boys from County Hell for a double dose of horror comedy from the Emerald Isle.

I said there were more changelings on the way, and here they are! Before The Nun and Whistle, director Corin Hardy was trekking into the Irish woods to make The Hallow, a practical effects-heavy affair with a chilling warning at its heart: “If you trespass upon them, they will trespass upon you.”
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Joseph Mawle plays Adam, a conservationist who moves his family into an isolated Irish village and promptly sets about removing the iron bars from the windows of his new home, against the stern advice of the locals.

Cue the fairy folk snatching his baby and infecting Adam with a strange fungus that begins to mutate his body. There’s some nasty body horror on display here, the creature design is twisted and cool, and Hardy shot the film primarily on location, giving The Hallow a gritty, earthy realism that is a joy to watch.

And how's this for an oddly specific double feature: follow it up with 2019’s The Hole in the Ground, the feature directorial debut of Lee Cronin (Evil Dead Rise and the upcoming The Mummy), for two Changeling-centric early films from major horror directors.

It’s surprisingly hard to find a good St. Patrick’s Day horror movie that’s actually set on the holiday. The dedicated segment in the anthology Holidays is, unfortunately, one of the film’s weakest, while Hulu’s Into the Dark entry Crawler is decent, if a little unoriginal.

Luckily, we have William Lustig’s cult classic Maniac Cop to give us a glimpse of the festivities, with the film’s climax taking place during New York City’s 50th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

You probably don’t need me to explain the plot of Maniac Cop. The title is pretty self-explanatory: a maniac cop, wrongfully convicted and supposedly killed in prison, is enacting his revenge on the streets of New York City by brutally killing civilians.

What you might not remember if you haven’t seen the film in a while is that it features real footage of the parade, complete with all the bagpipes and kilts you can shake a shamrock at—all while a baby-faced Sam Raimi makes a cameo as a news reporter commenting on the killings. Treat yourself to a rewatch, it’s a hoot.

Sitting high on many horror fans’ rankings of the best horror films of 2024, Oddity cemented director Damian McCarthy as one of horror’s rising stars. Where his previous film, Caveat (shot in the same barn in County Cork), is a simmering slow burn, Oddity is an undeniable crowd pleaser with its perfect blend of dark humor and unsettling scares.
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Carolyn Bracken (I told you she’d be back) stars as Darcy Odello, a blind clairvoyant and the owner of a curio shop. After her identical twin sister is murdered, Darcy shows up unexpectedly at her brother-in-law’s country house along with a creepy gift: a life-sized human-like statue with a gaping mouth.

With McCarthy’s latest, Hokum, premiering at SXSW this week and slated for a theatrical release in May, now is the perfect time to revisit Oddity or succumb to its off-kilter charms for the first time.

If you're still not convinced, here's a love letter on why Oddity should be a household name.

It was hard for me to rank anything higher than Oddity, a film I truly love. But when I thought about the drunken shenanigans I see on the streets of New York City every St. Patrick’s Day, only one film truly matched that energy.

From director Jon Wright, Grabbers is a monster movie with an irresistible premise: when a race of tentacled aliens invade a remote island community in Ireland, the locals converge on the pub, believing that keeping their blood alcohol level high will protect them from the creatures, which need blood and water to survive.
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As Michael Gingold wrote in his FANGORIA review back in 2013, “you don’t have to be drunk to have a feckin’ good time with Grabbers.” The film’s unabashedly silly energy propels the plot along, while the VFX work and strategic use of practical effects make the most of the modest budget.

For more from this director, seek out the imperfect but interesting Unwelcome, another fun entry in Ireland’s fecked-up folklore horror tradition.
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Those are my top picks for St. Patrick’s Day horror movies! But hey, if you fancy sticking with Leprechaun, that’s a solid choice, too. Just don’t mess with his gold.