The Daisy Chain | DVD Review

Evil-kid films are a dime a dozen and for the most part are actually pretty good entertainment and some of the most highly regarded films of the past half century. Let’s see, there’s The Bad Seed in 1956, 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby (sure, the ‘kid’ was a foetus up until the end of the movie, but it’s the spawn of Satan in that foetus…cut us a break!), and the 70s’ triumverate of The Exorcist, The Omen, and Cronenberg’s The Brood. In the the 80s’ we had the not-so-good-but-fun-anyway Children of the Corn, along with many other more gruesome films right up to the more recent gems The Orphan and The Children. All this is to say that The Daisy Chain, Irish director Aisling Walsh’s (the acclaimed Song for a Raggy Boy) entry into the canon, has some pretty large shoes to fill as far as evil-kid films go. Shoes that ultimately prove to be a couple of sizes too big.

After trying and failing to deal emotionally with the sudden death of their baby daughter, Martha (Oscar nominee Samantha Morton, In America, Sweet and Lowdown) and Tomas Conroy (Steven Mackintosh, Underworld: Evolution, The Escapist) move from London back to the rural coast of Ireland, to Tomas’ hometown, hoping that the change of scenery and pace will help. It’s here that they meet Daisy (newcomer Mhairi Anderson), a girl who has lost her entire family to tragic accidents within a few days. Martha takes a liking to the girl and the couple agree to take her in until a suitable family can be found to adopt Daisy. This wouldn’t be an evil-kid film if some strange things didn’t start happening to people around the couple, and naturally the superstitious locals all blame poor little Daisy, some even insisting that she’s a changeling/faerie. Is she really evil, though, or simply a traumatized little girl unjustly accused of doing very bad things? We’d love to tell you, but we’re not quite sure ourselves.

And therein lies the problem with The Daisy Chain: despite some fine direction from Walsh and stellar performances all around, including David Bradley (Argus Filch from the Harry Potter movies) as the Conroys’ crotchety old neighbor intent on saving everyone from poor little Daisy, not to mention the lush scenery of the Irish coast (though why anyone would want to live there is beyond us), Daisy herself is just not evil enough to claim a spot among the ‘bad seeds’ of the aforementioned films. The ambiguity of the script in this regard ends up being the film’s ultimate downfall.

As long as all you go into it with is an expectation of some nicely-shot and -presented scenery of the Irish coast and some decent sound design for a 5.1 audio setting, then the DVD is fine in terms of technical aspects. Just don’t expect much in the way of features, as you’ll be disappointed to find only a trailer for the film. A making-of featurette would have been nice, with some insight into the challenges of filming on the Irish coast. We could have learned a few more interesting tidbits about the film and its cast as well, such as the fact that the character of Martha was originally written as not being pregnant, but that had to be changed when the very pregnant Morton was cast. And it was a significant change, as her pregnancy plays a huge role in the film.

The Daisy Chain is worth a rental if only for the scenery and the strong performances from the cast, but it would have been better served if the story had omitted the evil child aspect (though not the child herself) and Walsh had simply crafted it as a dark and brooding family drama about coping with a tragic loss and trying to fill the void.

Movie rating – 2

Disc Rating – 2