Derry Girls – The Haunting Review

Derry Girls enters into horror territory with the fourth episode of the third season.

Sister Michael finds out her aunt has passed away and lumbers the gang with the task of clearing her aunt’s house for the wake. Michelle sees the task as an opportunity because the gang would get to be in an adult-free house for a whole night so they could spend a night drinking, partying, and find some fit farmer lads (or a girl for Clare). However, their night in County Donegal doesn’t live up to the hype.

Derry Girls has been compared to The Inbetweeners. The personalities of the girls were similar to The Inbetweeners lads and the setup of “The Haunting” felt a lot like an episode of The Inbetweeners. Michelle played the role of Jay Cartwright because she talked her friends into going on an out-of-town excursion with the promise of booze and sex. But like Jay, Michelle oversells the experience, and the gang doesn’t have as much fun as planned.

The parallels with The Inbetweeners were specific in places. Sister Michael guilted the gang into a task, similar to Gilbert pressuring Will to volunteer at the care home, and Michelle was like Jay because both characters used their acts of kindness for selfish reasons. James was like Simon, was pressured into doing a long drive despite only recently passing his test.

“The Haunting” played the role of being Season Three’s supernatural episode. Season One had an episode where the gangs believed they experienced a miracle, and in Season Two people believed Mary cursed her aunt to death. “The Haunting” played like a rural British horror that happened to be set in Ireland. The gang met strange locals, got an ominous warning from a woman who only spoke Irish, and the gang had to spend the night in a rundown house.

“The Haunting” did match the stylings of a horror film. The house was dark and dank, and the gang was trapped in the house because of a rainstorm. There were lots of shots using a wide-angle lens when the gangs were standing in tight places which gave the episode an unnatural look and the actors gave deliberately hammy performances like they were in a B-Movie. The episode even used John Carpenter’s iconic Halloween theme for a few seconds.

The supernatural storyline also extended to the adults. Mary, Sarah, and Joe wanted to contact the late Mrs. McCool and go to a local psychic. However, Gerry was sceptical. Gerry often acts as the voice of reason but is also ignored by his wife and belittled by his father-in-law. So, it’s satisfying when Gerry gets proven right. Tommy Tiernan did a great smug smile.

The other aspect of the episode was the relationship between Erin and James. In previous episodes it was hinted that the pair have feelings for each other. Erin cockblocked James when it seemed like he was going to have sex with a Ukrainian exchange student, and James skipped his Doctor Who convention to take Erin to the prom after her date was a no show. They finally confessed their feelings for each other and it was a great moment when they finally kissed. But their potential relationship had a massive roadblock because of their friendship group. Their confession does make it seem like it’s the beginning of the end for the Derry Girls since their potential relationship was one of the long-running storylines in the series.

Derry Girls’ Third Season has been a mixed bag in quality. The characterisation and humour felt off in “The Night Before” and “Strangers on a Train.” “The Haunting” was a return to form for the series. The gang acted more like the characters fans know and love. James returns to being the gang’s punching bag, like when he asked if they could find him a farmer girl and they called him sexist. Yet they have no problem talking about men in sexual terms. A fun interaction in the episode was when the gang reached the border because a soldier was surprised James was English. James ended up being in a lose-lose situation because to the Irish he was English but English people didn’t see James as a proper Englishman.

The primary aim of Derry Girls is to be funny. “The Haunting” managed that easily. It started with an awkward musical performance from Jenny Joyce and Aisling which Orla enjoyed. And the episode continued from there, like with Sister Michael’s frank assessment of her aunt, the gang’s interactions in the school mini-bus, and when the girls had to carry an unconscious James to the house. It was fun to see the characters act the way that made audiences fall in love with them.

“The Haunting” was an excellent episode of Derry Girls which stood out because of its horror-theming. It would make for great Halloween viewing.