A Sober Horror Movie About Not Being Sober
Michael Almereyda’s Trance is one of those strange late-’90s direct-to-video oddities that looks like it should be buried in the discount bin next to Leprechaun 4: In Space but somehow crawls out with dignity intact. The setup sounds absurd: a drunk American couple goes to Ireland to detox, only to find a mummified bog witch who decides she wants to steal a body. Normally, this would be a recipe for unwatchable schlock. But here, thanks to atmosphere, twisted humor, and a cast that punches above its weight, the movie becomes a bizarre little gem.
Nora and Jim: Alcoholics Anonymous Meets the Addams Family
At the heart of the story are Nora (Alison Elliott) and Jim (Jared Harris), two booze-soaked Americans trying to stumble their way toward redemption. Nora is haunted, Jim is sarcastic, and together they’re like Sid and Nancy if they’d swapped heroin for Guinness. Their banter has a cruel humor to it—he hides flasks, she hides resentment—and you can almost hear the movie chuckling, “yes, these people are deeply broken, but don’t look away just yet.” Unlike most horror couples, you don’t want them to die immediately. You want to see how spectacularly they’ll implode.
Enter Walken, Exit Sanity
Then there’s Christopher Walken as Uncle Bill. Blind, eccentric, and whispering about druids, he delivers lines like a man who got lost on his way to Shakespeare in the Park but decided to stay anyway. Walken doesn’t so much act as hover between reality and parody, muttering about bog mummies as though he’s ordering pancakes at IHOP. It shouldn’t work. It does. His scenes give the film a surreal edge: when he kisses the preserved witch corpse, you can’t tell if the movie is joking or dead serious. That’s the beauty—it’s both.
The Witch Who Would Be Nora
The bog body, Niamh, is introduced as a leathery museum exhibit. Then, in classic horror fashion, she decides she’s tired of being dead and re-emerges looking exactly like Nora. Alison Elliott gets double duty, playing both sympathetic alcoholic and knife-happy druid witch. It’s a testament to her performance that you can actually tell the difference—Nora slouches with the weight of her past, while Niamh struts like a goth runway model who just discovered murder is an accessory. Watching Elliott switch between the two is half the fun, like a possession story where the demon happens to be your hot Irish cousin.
When in Ireland, Do as the Druids Do
The movie leans hard into its Irish setting, and not in the “top o’ the morning” postcard way. Pubs are dens of temptation, forests hide family secrets, and every old house looks like it was decorated by someone who thought mildew was a design choice. The landscape feels like it’s actively conspiring against the characters, daring them to relapse, fight, or just get eaten by folklore. It’s gothic but also slyly funny, like the land itself is judging these drunken Americans: “Oh, you came to Ireland to get sober? Adorable.”
Violence Served With a Wink
This is not a gorefest. The killings are sparse but memorable, and always tinged with dark humor. Uncle Bill doesn’t just die—he gets decapitated mid-make-out session with the witch. Joe the ex-boyfriend doesn’t just seduce Nora—he gets used as cannon fodder when Niamh decides she’s bored. Even when characters are electrocuted or burned alive, the movie maintains a mischievous grin, as if to say, “look, we know this is ridiculous, but isn’t it fun?” It’s like the film is elbowing you in the ribs the whole time.
Alcoholism as a Weapon
What makes Trance stand out from its late-night peers is how it weaves addiction into the horror. Nora and Jim’s alcoholism isn’t just character backstory—it’s weaponized. Jim literally distracts Niamh with booze, as if to say: nothing defeats an ancient druid witch faster than a bottle of whiskey. It’s absurd, but it’s also weirdly profound. The movie takes something tragic and personal, then spins it into campy supernatural warfare. It’s both tasteless and brilliant, which is exactly the kind of tonal tightrope horror should walk.
The Ending: Tragedy or Punchline?
By the climax, Nora sacrifices herself to save her son, cutting her throat and diving into the ocean. But in a final twist, her soul replaces Niamh’s, meaning Nora survives inside the witch’s body. Instead of a tidy resolution, we get a bizarre metaphysical punchline: congratulations, you’re still alive, but now you’re technically a reanimated bog witch. Jim accepts it with the kind of weary shrug only an alcoholic husband could manage. The ending is both moving and absurd—a happy ending dressed in corpse-colored lipstick.
The Walken Factor
We need to pause here for a moment of reverence. Christopher Walken elevates this film beyond its station. Every line he delivers is both ominous and unintentionally hilarious. When he warns of ancient evils, you half-expect him to pivot into a monologue about needing more cowbell. The fact that he keeps a straight face while making out with a mummified witch body is Oscar-worthy in its own unhinged way. Without him, Trance would still be interesting. With him, it becomes unforgettable.
From Toronto to Your VCR
It’s telling that Trance premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, only to end up dumped direct-to-video in the U.S. That trajectory sums up the movie perfectly: it’s too weird for mainstream success, too clever to be pure trash, and destined to live in cult obscurity. It’s the kind of film you discover at 2 a.m., VHS whirring, wondering if the whiskey you just drank is making the screen wobble or if Christopher Walken really did just French kiss a corpse.
Final Toast
Trance (The Eternal) is an Irish gothic horror that shouldn’t work but does, thanks to its cast, atmosphere, and gleefully perverse sense of humor. It’s messy, uneven, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious, but that’s its charm. The movie feels like a drunken ghost story told in a pub: rambling, contradictory, and impossible to forget. You might not call it a masterpiece, but you’ll definitely call it a good time.
