The Outcasts

1982, 95 minutes, dir. Robert Wynne-Simmons

“In the dark she felt the key turning in the latch and a voice spoke to her: open the door,” whispers Maura (Mary Ryan), the odd, intense daughter of an impoverished rural family in early 1800s Ireland who is accused of witchcraft after she’s seen consorting in the woods with a conjurer and fiddle player named Scarf Michael (Mick Lally). Her neighbors and even her own family become increasingly consumed by fear and superstition, as Maura starts to experience surreal, poetic flashes of her latent powers.

A major rediscovery for fans of folklore, fantasy and folk horror, THE OUTCASTS was the first feature directed by Robert Wynne-Simmons, famed for his work as writer on the seminal British folk horror film BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW. THE OUTCASTS plays like an ancient ballad somehow captured on film, filled with the sorcery of earth and woods, musicians hooded in pagan straw masks and skirts, prejudice, myth and religion — and the peat and the mud and the bone-chilling cold. “There’s a queer sweetness in the air. It’s an unnatural state of affairs,” as one character murmurs. Ryan delivers an unforgettable performance as Maura with her piercing, raven-like beauty, matched by Lally as the nearly-mythic Scarf Michael. With a superb, lyrical score by acclaimed traditional folk composer Stephen Cooney.

Recently restored by the Irish Film Institute – Film Archive, THE OUTCASTS emerges as one of the great gems of Irish cinema – released for the first time ever in the U.S. by Deaf Crocodile.