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Two newly bereaved orphans find contrasting welcomes from their foster-mother, who takes tips on their care from a spooky video-tape.

Interesting set-up delivered through good performances. The pace and intensity are a step-down from Talk To Me, but the writing and editing keep the characters' dilemmas to the front as the jeopardy mounts.

Cinematography gives a good sense of isolation and charges up the monsoon-soaked climax. It also gives a subtle impression of the vision impairment of the sister, which is more interesting than the similar attempt made years ago in Bird Box. And the score is weird and moody.

I have a problem with the mythos of the story. The videotape appears from nowhere, unlike, say, in Ringu, where the material is introduced through a zinger of an urban myth. And the footage is over-produced, like bad orgy porn - again, unlike Ringu with its cryptic weirdness. The black magic seems to work on the boy, but I'm not clear on why the plan falls apart in the pool. So the story kinda lost whatever spell it had. Just spitballin', but maybe it should have taken a leaf from the grimoire of The Skeleton Key?

These film-makers are excellent at delivering troubled characters, but as in TTM they don't feel fully committed to the mysteries of horror.

Overall: underpowered entry in Oz's quest for horror supremacy.

While gathering the left overs of her suicided mother's life, a woman is called away on a live-in carer's job for an old woman in an old house in the countryside. Where she finds a red door to the cellar, guarded by folk charms ...

Not really a horror, but a study in generational paranoid schizophrenia - with folk horror influences: The Wickerman and Penda's Fen come through strong in the climax. The plot device is the taking of children by the Sidhe, fairy entities that appear as goats and as humans too - but which are stand-ins for altogether more material demons from the past.

Interesting, with good performances, and some quality cinematography. But it is uneven. Early on there's a really striking image of the hanged mother in her wedding dress; later on, another wedding dress appears, but without any spooky touches - it's just there on a clothes hanger. And the folk horror details weren't delivered with enough style - think of the smile figures in the recent Smile 2 for the spookiness of good choreography. On the plus side, the visiting supervisor was just right in her buttoned down insanity - although her role trailed off into nothing. And the Father Ted style decor reeked of layered-on ignorance and obsession.

The dialogue is mostly in Irish, but lacking in lyricism - there is one powerful description by Peig of the other world, but otherwise the exchanges are quite banal, with lots of Ceart go leors ('alright') popping up. I noticed the phrase Geallaim duit ('I promise you') repeated 3 times, but the subtitles gave the final use a different translation even as the old woman marked it as the third time.

The outstanding element is the music and sound design: industrial folk doom, if that's a genre. Delivered by the mighty Die Hexen.

As a descent into madness, the story is good, but not of the first order since it shows us no way out. Not that the way out has to be taken, but its existence heightens this kind of drama. There is a little post-script after the end credits, which reinforces the theme of taking children, but too little to add extra enlightenment.

Overall: Interesting but uneven. And the title, so I'm told, is a phonetic version of the Irish for roots.

On moving to a new house, a family that's split right down the middle in its sympathies finds a ghostly presence ready to upset the balance.

Nobody beats this director for camera use in telling a story - from the very first shot he takes us into the presence and never lets us leave, right up to the return to the original shot and then the final shot, when the presence disappears. And we also get clues to the mystery fed in from the start, with the 'spectacular' mirror and so on.

Performances are good, with oftentimes cryptic dialogue to fill in the back story - so we need to pay attention as the real threat begins to emerge. The family dynamic is brittle, with each parent desperate to hold on to one of the children, while the children act out their spite against each other.

I enjoyed the pace: it's a short run time and kept me engaged all the way. The score is simple piano and lush strings, more wistful than mournful, and light in mood.

As for the shape of the story, it has a final reveal that fits all the fleeting clues into place. Watch out for the comment about the 'decent man inside', and the psychic's observation on the nature of time.

Overall: Elegant, unfussy ghost story.

P.s. The end credits have a random photo of a machine keyboard at the very end. Huh?