If you’ve ever wanted to watch a movie that feels like a rural Irish soap opera, accidentally swallowed a pagan horror script, and then vomited black magic onto the carpet—well, congratulations. You’ve found Puffball. Directed by Nicolas Roeg, the man once hailed as a cinematic visionary, this film feels less like the swan song of a master filmmaker and more like that awkward karaoke performance your drunk uncle insists on giving before being escorted off the stage.
The Plot: Witchcraft, Pregnancy, and More Witchcraft
On paper, Puffball is a supernatural horror-thriller. In reality, it’s two hours of people glaring at each other in an Irish valley while muttering about babies. Our heroine, Liffey (Kelly Reilly), is an ambitious architect who moves into a creepy, isolated ruin gifted to her by her fiancé, Richard. Because nothing says “I love you” like dropping your partner in the middle of rural Ireland with a collapsing shack and a family of witches as neighbors.
Enter Molly (Rita Tushingham), the wizened matriarch who looks like she’s been stirring cauldrons since the potato famine, and her daughter Mabs (Miranda Richardson), who’s forty, desperate for another child, and radiates menace like a radioactive chicken. Together, these two dabble in black magic, not so much the cool, The Witch-style black magic, but the “let’s light a candle and pretend our fertility issues can be solved with herbs” kind.
The problem? Liffey sleeps with both her fiancé and Tucker, Mabs’s husband. Because apparently, fidelity is optional in Irish horror movies. Naturally, she gets pregnant, and everyone assumes it’s Tucker’s child. Cue Mabs spiraling into full-blown jealous rage and begging mommy dearest for more spells. The magic escalates into attempts to kill Liffey’s unborn baby with witchcraft-induced miscarriage—because nothing says thrilling horror like supernatural prenatal sabotage.
Spoiler: Mabs eventually gets the boy she wanted. Which makes the entire ordeal feel like a PSA for “just be patient, your creepy pagan baby will come eventually.”
The Horror: Wombs, Witches, and WTF Moments
Now, you might expect a movie about witches hexing a pregnant woman to have atmosphere, terror, or at least a few jump scares. Instead, Puffball gives us endless shots of fields, storm clouds, and Donald Sutherland wandering around like he got lost on the way to a better film. Seriously, Donald Sutherland plays Lars, a character so unnecessary he could’ve been replaced by a well-trained scarecrow and no one would have noticed.
The scares? Nonexistent. Unless, of course, your deepest fear is Miranda Richardson muttering “fertility” at you while stirring tea. There’s supposed to be tension around Liffey’s pregnancy—visions, spells, evil forces—but it plays out with all the energy of a particularly long church sermon. By the time the witches started hexing, I was half-convinced the true horror was being trapped in this movie at all.
The Characters: Dysfunction Junction
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Liffey (Kelly Reilly): Our protagonist. She’s an architect, which is apparently a character trait instead of a profession. Mostly, she looks confused and/or nauseous for the entire runtime, which, to be fair, is how the audience feels too.
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Mabs (Miranda Richardson): The film’s supposed villain, though really she’s just an angry middle-aged woman who wants a baby. Instead of therapy, she chooses witchcraft, because, hey, cheaper than IVF.
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Molly (Rita Tushingham): The grandmother witch. Her idea of helpful parenting advice is “curse your neighbor’s fetus.” Great role model.
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Tucker (William Houston): Farmer, philanderer, and the human equivalent of a muddy boot.
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Richard (Oscar Pearce): The fiancé who gives Liffey the cursed cottage. Boyfriend of the year.
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Donald Sutherland (Lars): Donald, buddy, what are you doing here? Was this a dare? Did Nicolas Roeg promise you whiskey and forget to deliver?
The Atmosphere: Rain, Mud, and More Rain
Ireland is beautiful, but Puffball makes it look like the world’s longest weather report. Every other shot is rain, mist, or mud, like a tourism ad designed by Satan. Nicolas Roeg claimed the locations “become a character in their own right,” which is true if the character you mean is “dampness.”
Instead of gothic terror, we get endless rustic shots that scream BBC countryside drama. By the time the witches were muttering incantations, I half expected the camera to pan to a flock of sheep looking bored.
The Themes: Fertility and Other Awkward Dinner Topics
At its heart, Puffball is about fertility. Women wanting babies, women losing babies, women hexing other women’s babies. If this movie were any more obsessed with reproduction, it would be shown in high school sex-ed classes as a deterrent. The message seems to be: “Motherhood is inevitable, witchcraft is viable, and cheating on your fiancé with a farmer is totally fine if you want supernatural drama in your life.”
The Execution: More Puff, Less Ball
The pacing is glacial. Scenes drag on forever. Roeg tries to recreate his old magic—fragmented editing, dreamlike visuals—but here it just feels like someone dropped the film reel, spliced it back together incorrectly, and called it “art.” The supernatural elements don’t feel integrated; they feel stapled onto a family drama. If The Wicker Man and EastEnders had a baby, and then that baby was dropped repeatedly, you’d get Puffball.
And then there’s the dialogue. Characters speak in hushed tones as if saying things loudly might wake the audience. At one point, Mabs’s jealousy is so cartoonish she might as well twirl an invisible mustache. At another, Liffey’s architecture subplot is brought up, then promptly forgotten, like the filmmakers realized halfway through, “Oh right, she’s supposed to do something.”
Donald Sutherland Watch
We need to talk about Donald. He wanders into scenes, mumbles cryptic nonsense, then vanishes again, like Gandalf if Gandalf had retired to rural Ireland and taken up loafing. His role is so irrelevant that every time he appeared, I wondered if I was hallucinating. Did Nicolas Roeg owe him money? Did Sutherland get lost on set and they just let him roll with it?
The Ending: Anti-Climax, Thy Name is Puffball
After all the cursing, hexing, and baby drama, how does Puffball end? Mabs gets her longed-for boy, Liffey’s pregnancy drama is waved away, and everyone kind of shrugs. That’s it. No fiery showdown, no cathartic resolution—just the vague sense that we’ve all wasted two hours watching Miranda Richardson yell at the rain.
It’s like ordering a horror film on the menu, waiting patiently, and then being served a cold salad of bad accents and witchy muttering.
Final Thoughts: Puff, Puff, Pass (on This Movie)
Puffball tries to blend supernatural horror, fertility drama, and rural mysticism, but instead delivers something that’s equal parts dull and ridiculous. It’s a movie about magic that somehow has no spark. It’s about horror but inspires only yawns. It’s about pregnancy but mostly made me want to abort the viewing experience halfway through.
As Nicolas Roeg’s final feature, it’s a baffling swan song—a master director who once gave us Don’t Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth going out with a soggy whimper instead of a bang.
Rating: 1 out of 5 Witchy Fertility Charms
Because the only real horror here is realizing you spent an evening watching Puffball instead of doing literally anything else.
