Khushi Jain confronts the bleak world of Tabby Daly in this atmospheric review.
Tabby Daly is a terrifying tale told in candlelight, where silhouettes dance and those who leave never return. Connor Kilkelly and John Doherty’s latest short is set in a rural village during the “Great Hunger”. The film, which has played at SpookScreen Cork, Louth International Film Festival, Beijing Indie Short Film Festival and, most recently, Imbolg: Women Who Terrify Film Festival, has a perfectly deadly horror built into its premise: hunger. But Kilkelly and Doherty are more interested in how people deal with this hunger, and how one horror gives birth to another. The result is shadowy storytelling.
The eponymous Tabby Daly (Andrea Kelly) is a sturdy, middle-aged woman who works as administrator at the local church in her village and arranges passage to the US to young men wishing to escape the starvation decimating the country. In its opening, the film establishes Tabby’s character: she inspires trust in the people around her, she writes, makes notes and remembers, and she is not all that she seems to be.
The riddling tranquillity of Tabby’s dark and desolate domesticity is disrupted when a village woman comes asking for news of her son. Tabby had arranged for his passage across the Atlantic and the boy had promised to write, but the mother has not received a single word. Time passes and the woman becomes more and more worried, demanding answers from Tabby, answers that Tabby is hiding somewhere clandestine and sunless.
In a small stone building next to her home, Tabby is confronted by her actions, hanging from the ceiling and talking to her. She, in turn, sings lullabies to them, the same ones that she used to sing to her now-dead son. Music occupies a place of immense significance in Tabby Daly. Kilkelly himself composed the soundtrack for the film, along with Stephanie Hannon, prominently using the fiddle to mark moments of transition and almost dividing the story into chapters. Tabby’s own song, sung in a sad but also remorseless tone, revisits a classic trope of the genre.
The period setting and prominence of music make Tabby Daly reminiscent of Barlebas, the period short by Malu Janssen. A 2024 Dutch film, Barlebas focuses on witch trials and uses music as a means of self-expression, empowerment and community for women. It does not shy away from the nightmarish quality of its theme, which Janssen heightens through monochromatic cinematography. Despite it all, Barlebas emanates a sense of hope and resilience. Tabby Daly, on the other hand, leaves you bleak and helpless. Cinematographer David Christopher Lynch keeps Tabby and her world Stygian and veiled from the very start. The few outdoor scenes are shot under grey, moody skies typical in Ireland, and indoor spaces are kept joyless by robbing them of light. Candles, as and when they do appear, only seem to make this darkness darker.
As a story with a secret, its proverbial cards are revealed early on. Kelly, as Tabby, gives a restrained and worthy performance, but because Tabby’s undisclosed acts are disclosed so quickly, an ending that potentially could have been lethally impressive leaves you wanting more. Dare I say it, a little hungry.
Kilkelly and Doherty are interested in fascinating ideas. Their 2020 short Assistance, which Doherty directed and Kilkelly composed for, followed two brothers putting an end to their old man’s life. There is a preoccupation evident in their work with the effects of cruel tragedies, suffering and financial strain in Assistance, and starvation in Tabby Daly. They examine how tragedy begets tragedy and leaves everyone involved in a vicious cycle of horror. Despite any shortcomings, there is much to appreciate in Tabby Daly and I will be very curious to see what new twisted ideas these two filmmakers come up with in the future.
Tabby Daly screened in Griffith College Dublin at Imbolg: Women Who Terrify Film Festival 2026.
