''Dark Touch'' is a 2013 Irish-French-Swedish

supernatural horror film Supernatural horror film is a film genre that combines aspects of horror film and supernatural film. Supernatural occurrences in such films often include ghosts and demons, and many supernatural horror films have elements of religion. Common them ...

that was directed and written by

Marina de Van Marina de Van (; born 8 February 1971) is a French film director, screenwriter and actress. Her film, '' Don't Look Back'', was screened out of competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Her brother is , he appeared with her in the 1998 f ...

. The film had its world premiere on 18 April 2013 at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

and stars Missy Keating as the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that caused the deaths of her family.

Synopsis

Eleven-year-old Niamh (Missy Keating) and her family live in an extremely small and isolated community in Ireland where her only contact with other people comes in the form of school and her neighbors Nat (Marcella Plunkett) and Lucas (Pádraic Delaney). She claims that their house is coming alive but when Nat and Lucas discover Niamh bruised and bloody, her parents say that Niamh herself is causing the destruction. Niamh is later discovered as the sole survivor of an extremely violent attack that killed everyone else in the house. She tells the police that the house is responsible for her parents' deaths and for her infant brother's suffocation in her arms, but the police attribute the massacre to vandals. Niamh's neighbors decide to take her in and try to help soothe her pain, but they soon find that whatever caused the problems in Niamh's old house are now beginning to present themselves in their home.

Cast

* Missy Keating as Niamh *

Marcella Plunkett Marcella is a Roman cognomen and Italian given name, the feminine version of Marcello (Mark in English). Marcella means warlike, martial, and strong. It could also mean 'young warrior'. The origin of the name Marcella is Latin. Marcella may refer ...

as Nat Galin *

Pádraic Delaney Pádraic Delaney (born 6 November 1977) is an Irish actor known for playing Teddy O'Donovan in the Ken Loach film '' The Wind That Shakes the Barley'', for which he earned an IFTA nomination as well as being named Irish Shooting Star for the 20 ...

as Lucas Galin * Charlotte Flyvholm as Tanya Collins * Stephen Wall as Mathew Collins * Ella Hayes as Emily * Robert Donnelly as Ryan Galin * Susie Power as Lucy Galin *

Richard Dormer Richard Dormer (born 11 November 1969) is an actor, playwright and screenwriter from Northern Ireland. He is best known for his roles as Beric Dondarrion in the HBO television series ''Game of Thrones'' and Dan Anderssen in Sky Atlantic's '' ...

as Henry * Catherine Walker as Maud *

Simon Boyle Sir Simon Hugh Patrick Boyle (22 March 1941 – 4 September 2020) was a British business executive who was Lord Lieutenant of Gwent from 2001 to 2016. Biography Boyle was born on 22 March 1941,

as Mr. Brennan *

Olga Wehrly Olga Wehrly (born 1978 or 1979) is an Irish actor and voiceover artist. Background Wehrly is from Ransboro, County Sligo. She joined the Mary McDonagh School of Dance at the age of three and later studied drama under Damien Quinn. Wehrly atten ...

as Colette *

Mark Huberman Mark Huberman (born 1981) is an Irish actor. Early life Mark Huberman grew up in Cabinteely, south Dublin. His father Harold was born in London; his mother Sandra is from County Wexford. His sister, Amy Huberman Amy Huberman (born 20 March 1 ...

as Joseph * Katie Kirby as Lisbeth * Clare Barrett as Christine *

Art Parkinson Art Parkinson (born 19 October 2001) is an Irish actor from Moville in Inishowen, County Donegal, in Ireland. He began his professional acting career at the age of seven. He is best known for his role as Rickon Stark on the HBO series ''Game of ...

as Peter

Reception

Critical reception for ''Dark Touch'' has been mostly positive and the film holds a rating of 73% on ''

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

'' (based on 11 reviews) and 64 on ''

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

'' (based on 5 reviews).

Awards

*''Denis-de-Rougemont Youth Award'' at the

Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival The Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) is a Swiss film festival dedicated to fantastic movies. It was created in 2000 and is now renowned internationally as one of the foremost film festivals in the world for genre cinema. Th ...

(2013, won) *''Mad Movies Award'' at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (2013, won) *''Narcisse Award for Best Feature Film'' at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (2013, won) *''Maria Award for Best Motion Picture'' at the

Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival The Sitges Film Festival ( ca, Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, links=no) is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Spain, specialized in fantasy and horror films, of which it is considered one of the world's foremost in ...

(2013, nominated)

References

External links

{{IMDb title, 2328549 2013 films 2013 horror films 2010s supernatural horror films Irish supernatural horror films English-language Irish films English-language French films English-language Swedish films 2010s English-language films