Horror movies, such as they are, remain a fairly uniformed experience. Despite the buckets of viscus and brains that are unashamedly tossed around the screen they typically conform to certain expectations; 15 jumps minimum, casual brutal violence and characters so wooden they have to chop them to pieces to prove they're homosapiens.
Horrors that have stood the test of time, The Fly, The Shining, Don't Look Now, The Exorcist, The Wickerman all have one thing in common; they shied away from quick thrills. Using relatively few easy jumps and the bare minimum of bloodshed, they work on a purer level of dread. Daisy Chain does just this.
The first thing that impresses is the direction. Aisling Walsh, best known for 2003's Song for a Raggy Boy, may not be working from a script of her own but the direction is calculated and assured. The imagery retains a painterly quality, the sets are draped in a muddy colour scheme which makes the outside grim and the inside soft and warm. Images such as the removal of the cross from the wall (only to have left an impression on the wall) and the barren wasteland quality to the setting (shot in County Mayo) leave each shot with a resonant bleakness that is nearly as harrowing as the story itself.
The acting from the entire cast is solid but the highlight must be newcomer Mhairi Anderson, playing the eponymous Daisy. The child actor shifts between menace, and adorable with impressive subtlety. Between playfully skipping around to suddenly kissing Samantha Morton directly on the lips, the kid manages to scare the bejesus out of you by doing very little.
And while people do get killed in this film we usually only see the end of the event rather than the beginning. The characters don't delve into hysterics, nor do they stupidly allow themselves to be a vulnerable for long. Instead life is shown to be normal despite the abnormal circumstances. The mayhem surrounding the main characters is only a by product of the strange intangible fear that exists within the (albeit hazard free) household. Shots are longer and issues are more repressed- living with Daisy proves to be more scary than living without (in the greater sense of the word).
Trust independent film making to lean toward the aforementioned classics above (Daisy Chain even features one or two nods to The Wickermna) and having the understanding to know what really affects in horror. Daisy Chain doesn't make you jump out of your seat, it instead creeps under your skin and lasts for days.
