BEYOND THE GRAVE (HERE BEFORE)

© BBC Films

The trick to a great psychological thriller is atmosphere.

Set the right tone and the audience is immediately hooked.

If you want to get a sense of how to do it, look no further than Northern Irish filmmaker Stacey Gregg's debut feature 'Here Before'.

Revelling in the cold and damp of a late Northern Irish late autumn/early winter, Gregg's film uses the weather to accentuate the sense of loss experienced by Andrea Riseborough's central character Laura.

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But it also adds to the chilling effect that Niamh Dornan's talkative young schoolgirl Megan has on Laura as she starts to trigger uncomfortable questions about life after death.

In Gregg's film, Laura and Jonjo O'Neill's Brendan live on the edge of a residential estate in Antrim with their teenage son, Lewis McAskie's Tadgh.

The family is coming to terms with the death of their young daughter Josie years earlier in a car accident.

Despite their grief, Brendan and Laura have been keeping the show going for Tadgh.

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However when new neighbours arrive, the family's dynamics start to change.

Laura is working in the garden when she is approached by Dornan's very chatty young schoolgirl, Megan.

Initially she is charmed by the 10 year old who appears very innocent and friendly.

Megan's parents, though, Eileen O'Higgins' Marie and Martin McCann's Chris are more distant.

However they tolerate Laura befriending Megan - with their neighbour giving the young girl a lift back from primary school and even inviting her around to her house for tea with Brendan and Tadgh.

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Megan, however, starts to behave in a way that arouses Laura's suspicion that she might be Josie reincarnated.

Passing a cemetery, Megan casually remarks she has been there before which puzzles Laura.

She does the same in a playground.

But how could she know these things when the family have only moved into the neighbourhood?

Such is the discombobulating atmosphere, though, that Gregg and her cinematographer Chloe Thomson create, you're not sure what Megan is at. 

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Could it all be a figment of Laura's imagination?

And yet the odd remarks persist.

At Laura and Brendan's kitchen table, Megan asks her neighbour to do the smiley face on her bread with ketchup - something that Josie used to love and something she could not possibly have known about.

All of these incidents disturb Laura and have her questioning her sanity.

But it also unsettles the family dynamic as Tadgh begins to become irritated by the attention Laura is lavishing on Megan.

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Writer-director Gregg impressively builds the tension in a style that is reminiscent of Nic Roeg's 1973 classic 'Don't Look Now' - a film that also dealt with a couple trying to come to terms with the loss of a child.

Her feature shares the same bleak, late autumnal/early winter setting as Roeg's film.

Thomson also uses the drabness of the neiighbourhood where Laura and Brendan live to eerie effect.

Occasionally her camera creeps around houses or peers through doorways at unusual angles, only adding to the sense of discomfort in the film.

Gregg's script also deftly stokes other tensions.

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Class rears its head during a scene where Brendan makes a casual remark about tattoos in front of Chris which lands awkwardly and accentuates the difference between the two families.

For the film to unsettle audiences, Gregg must extract a natural performance from Dornan whose chattiness shifts from being initially innocent and amusing to something more sinister.

It helps, though, that Riseborough is cast as Laura.

One of the most intelligent screen performers of the past decade, she not only nails the Northern Irish accent for the second time in her career (she played an informer in the ranks of the IRA in James Marsh's terrific 2012 thriller 'Shadow Dancer') but she brilliantly conveys the mounting unease of Laura.

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Riseborough is complemented by O'Neill, O'Higgins, McCann and McAskie who are all on top form in their respective roles. 

However it is Gregg and her grasp of the demands of visual storytelling that really impresses.

An accomplished playwright, she doesn't simply fall back on dialogue.

She clearly understands the power of an image and trusts her cast to let their expressions do the talking.

Even if the denouement doesn't completely convince, she builds up enough credit throughout to get away with how it rolls out because of her subtle building up of tension.

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'Here Before' - a subtle play on the word hereafter - is a hugely impressive debut, suggesting Gregg is a filmmaking talent to keep a close eye on.

It is the work of a filmmaker who has earned her spurs as a writer but has a strong visual sense.

The film whets the appetite for her next project - she has written the script for Prasanna Puwanarajah's comedy  'Ballywalter' with Patrick Kielty and Seana Kerslake which recently received its premiere at the Belfast Film Festival.

It also makes a strong case for the film industry in Northern Ireland to continue to help indigenous filmmakers find their voice with effective, low budget indie stories.

With this assured debut, hopefully we will see a lot more Stacey Gregg movies on the big screen in the years ahead.

A talent like this deserves support.

('Here Before' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on February 18, 2022)