{Movie Review} Unwelcome (2023)

I am not going to lie. The first ten minutes of this movie involves an absolutely brutal home invasion and beating that reminded me of the horrific opening scene to The Nightengale. That is to say; I struggled to get through it. It is an absolutely brutal and tough first ten minutes. The last 80 minutes or so, however, feel almost like a fundamentally different movie. Once our leads make it to the countryside, the movie turns into an eighties goblin movie, ala Gremlins or Ghoulies. I almost stopped watching Unwelcome but boy am I glad a stuck around. Full of campy practical effects, Unwelcome feels like a throwback to a simpler time when we could rely on the monsters in the woods to help us, but always at a cost.

The plot is pretty straightforward. Unwelcome stars Hannah John-Kamen(Maya) and Douglas Booth (Jamie) as a couple who escape their urban nightmare to the tranquility of rural Ireland only to hear stories of mysterious beings who live in the gnarled, ancient wood at the foot of their new garden. As warned by their new neighbors, in Irish lore, the Redcaps will come when called to help souls in dire need of rescue, but it’s crucial to remember that there is always a dear price to pay for their aid.

Unwelcome is a Creature Feature

Director Jon Wright argues that Unwelcome is a creature feature with heart, and that is the exact vibe the movie gives off. Despite the brutality of the opening moments, the film unfolds as a typical rural folk horror movie. Including the introduction of the rural, rude, and ultimately evil family that has been contracted to fix up Maya and Jamie’s place. Colm Meany from Star Trek fame is particularly dastardly as the patriarch who insists that everyone calls him Daddy. As Daddy and his gang get increasingly belligerent, Jamie and Maya get increasingly desperate. Enter the army of redcaps, who are terrifyingly adorable. This move brought back the creature crew behind The Grabbers, another creature-heavy horror flick from 2013. As the movie turns its focus to the redcaps, the practical effects take center stage, and the entire film is better off. With a few comedic winks and nudges, this movie exists in the same universe as Gremlins, where suddenly, we all want to cuddle the slimy sharp-toothed goblins. There is merchandise gold to be made here.

At the core of what makes this film work is an absolutely fantastic performance from Hannah John-Kamen, who manages to capture a mother who desperately wants to have a baby while also dealing with a traumatic moment surrounding the news of her pregnancy. Maya is complex, fierce, independent, and above all, a fighter. John-Kamen’s performance makes Maya someone we root for from the very beginning of the film. Douglas Booth’s performance as Jamie does a lot to provide her with the stage. He is a slightly feckless city boy whose mouth sometimes gets him into trouble. He is not entirely likable all the time, which also helps her performance stand out even more. Sure, she is from the city, but she is entirely capable of taking of herself and her family.

Unwelcome is Muppets Take Hobbs End

Shot at the very beginning of the pandemic, Unwelcome slowly and subtly changes its color palette to embrace the fantastical final act of the film. It happens before you know it, but as the sun comes up during the denouement, the new vibrant, almost playful color scheme almost acts as a reveal. We have been in a fairytale all along and just didn’t know it. Perhaps that is also why I enjoyed the film as much as I did. It is a scary, gory-as-hell muppet movie, and the audience doesn’t realize it until the very end. Muppets take Hobbs End, perhaps. Wright manages to capture the whimsy of Labrinth but maintains the scares of other creature features. It totally works and with a packed audience in an actual movie theatre, I can only imagine the laughs, gasps, and fun viewers will have.

Outside of the abrupt and significant tonal shift the movie takes in the first fifteen minutes, the movie accomplishes everything it sets off to achieve. The movie might have done better to include some of the Redcaps earlier in the film, or even perhaps to give some of the Redcaps bigger individual characteristics. I kept expecting some of them to differentiate themselves, but ultimately their cuteness and fear lie in their ubiquity. They are everywhere, and the fact they mostly all act and look the same helps reinforce that idea. That being said, as we discover the magic and fantasy of the woods, I kept expecting one of them to have a mohawk and demand to be called spike. Imagine the marketing. I guess we will need to wait for Unwelcome 2: The New Breed. Just tell me where to buy the tickets, and I will be there.

Unwelcome comes to AMC theatres tomorrow as part of their thrills and chills rotation. Go see it. You won’t be sorry.