23/10/2014 - Company slate will produce ten features over five years

Artwork for The Morrigan

Belfast-based Gothic Pictures has launched its Irish Gothic label, focused on genre films based on Irish legend. The label is presented by Screen Northern Ireland and will launch with The Morrigan by writer/director Richard Crawford. The Morrigan is a possession story that takes place in Elizabethan Ireland where an ancient demon is unleashed in an isolated fort. Moving from host to host by means of the act of killing, only a young girl realizes the terrible truth - if you kill it, you become it. Two sequels will follow the feature. 

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Irish Gothic is the brainchild of Causeway Pictures Managing Director Chris Patterson and writer/director Spence Wright. The label has a slate of ten films that it will produce over five years. One of them is Vampires vs. Leprechauns, a high concept reboot of both Irish and vampire legends written by Wright and directed by Allan Gildea. The label is also developing the series Hy-Brasil, set on a phantom island in the Atlantic Ocean, which, according to an old Irish myth, was cloaked in mist, except for one day every seven years when it became visible.  

Patterson said, “Irish myths and legends are rich with wondrous and terrible creatures. The Irish Gothic banner will put them in front of a modern horror audience and create a lasting legacy that hopefully will become a genre of its own.”