An archeologist believes the legend of a Pagan goddess has a basis in fact and manages to convince a stuffy room of her male superiors to fund an excavation on the Irish island where the legend has its origins. Of course, they do not let her lead the trip but place that in the hands of a snobby younger male member of their board. Someone she’s been attempting to remove herself from the shadow of for a bit. She planned on leaving her angsty teen daughter with her papa but he’s left and the girl got herself expelled from boarding school so nine months after the approval to head of on out, our determined hero and her daughter are arriving to the isolated island to begin professor Fiona’s work joining the dig deep under the ruins where that asshole Horner (who has a history of taking credit for her work… it also looks like he sexually assaulted Fiona because why wouldn’t his ass have that in his history as well) is getting busy unearthing things. The island’s owner has a cozy inn despite the mounted animal heads and portrait of his drowned wife where everyone is put up. He also has an awkward son who has a crush on Fiona’s daughter Lily. Soon after arrival, Fiona uncovers a burial chamber and unearths the casket within. Horner wants to send the thing to Dublin but Fiona and Horner’s assistant think opening it would help them out. Of course with Horner heading things, the burial casket is left closed. Lily calls bullshit on her mother not being allowed to open her find and she also seems to have some connection to it… at least the quick flash of a spooky face she experienced when touching it hints at that. Scuzzball Horner shares a drink with Lily and gets really creepy, the island’s crow population acts up and a fast approaching storm may be causing some issues when it comes to contact with the outside world. A vodka-drunk Lily decides to open up the casket and the connection she has with the Pagan goddess buried within is strengthened, flashing back to the woman’s horrible fate at the hands of whatever religious dopes were going about ridding the world of an evil they made up at the time. Mom ain’t all that happy with her daughter’s actions as it kind of sunk her chance at tenure because of course Horner went and told the higher-ups what happened although it probably won’t matter much because Lily is acting strange and it’s the kind of strange that usually means something has set up shop inside a vessel. A power outage leads to a full transformation and thankfully Horner is the first to come into contact with the wall-crawling and glowing-eyed Lily. That’s one dead rapist right off the bat! James Cosmo shows up as an estranged family member (also holy man) of the island owner who knows the score because there should always be an old timer who has an idea as to what horrors are running rampant. Looks like Lily may need to be put down and the locals (well, the three we meet) don’t seem to have any problem with that. A lame chase and even lamer deaths follow. Digital crows and snakes show up and Lily creeps around sharing visions and being a jerk. Mom may hold the key to save her but you probably will have fallen asleep by that point. The movie looks nice with its forested location and quiet island setting but that’s about the only thrills it has to offer as it slogs through its bog-standard story, stubbornly refusing to switch anything up. Shoddy effects offer some smiles but everything feels like it’s pacing through quicksand with no real idea where it wants to go.
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