Halloween might be the prime season for horror, but that doesn't mean we can't look for scary movies related to all of the other holidays, too. It's hard to turn St. Patrick's Day into one of terror, seeing as it's a day typically associated with the beginning of spring and Americans usually celebrate the day with cheery toasts to leprechauns and four-leaf clovers.
But horror filmmakers are nothing if not creative and there are at least a couple of movies that work for today. Beyond that, it's also just a nice time to celebrate Irish culture, and that means watching movies that take place in Ireland or were made by Irish filmmakers. So without further ado, here are five horror movies you can watch tonight if you're feeling festive.
Leprechaun (1993)
- Streaming: Peacock
Let's get the most obvious choice out of the way. To this day, the Leprechaun franchise remains one of the very few leprechaun-centered horror out there, perhaps to be rectified someday. The 1993 film has become a very popular cult film, mostly due to Warwick Davis' wonderfully hammy performance as the movie's titular villain who happens to have a weakness to four-leaf clovers.
It's terrific fun watching a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston running around trying to combat this iconic creature of folklore. There are a total of eight Leprechaun films available, with another one reportedly in the works. If you want to properly marathon the Leprechaun films, almost all of them are now on Peacock.
Oddity (2024)
- Streaming: Shudder/AMC+
Irish filmmaker Damian Mc Carthy directed this disturbing psychological horror movie from last year starring Carolyn Bracken in dual roles. She takes on the part of Darcy Odello who is murdered in the opening scene of the film with her death attributed to an escape mental hospital patient. But her sister, Dani (also Bracken), a psychic who runs a curio shop, suspects something is amiss. She travels to her sister's home to further investigate her death, with a life-size golem in tow. Mc Carthy's previous film, Caveat, is also available on Shudder.
Grabbers (2012)
- Streaming: Shudder
A monster comedy movie that's sort of like Tremors if it were based on a remote Irish island, Grabbers is a funny and breezy watch improved by its great special effects and ample gore. What starts as a mysterious incident involving the discovery of mutilated whales washed ashore soon escalates into an all-out war between the surviving humans and giant tentacled aliens.
It's always nice to see a horror movie filmed in Ireland like this one was, and the film itself has a lot of fun with its characters, many of whom are in a drunken stupor amidst the action after partying at a pub, adding to the film's sense of humor and overall insanity.
Unwelcome (2023)
- Streaming: Shudder
If you’re looking for more folk horror this St. Patrick’s Day then might I point you toward this 2023 film featuring several Irish actors. While it doesn’t feature leprechauns, the plot does heavily revolve around redcaps, which are kind of like a leprechaun’s evil, goblin-like cousin. Unwelcome follows a couple who have just relocated to rural Ireland.
At their new home, it’s custom to ward off redcaps with a nightly offering. As the couple become entangled with a local family, they begin to learn about a disturbing deal once made with these creatures and discover that in this place, folklore is a lot more dangerous than they expected.
Into the Dark: Crawlers (2020)
- Streaming: Hulu
Hulu anthology series Into the Dark became well-known for producing multiple feature-length installments, each one revolving around a specific holiday. Crawlers is a particularly fun episode that ditches leprechauns in favor of body-swapping aliens. A group of friends are enjoying the holiday during a pub crawl when the aliens invade and they find themselves in a fight for their lives.