5 films to inspire your next UK break

Find British travel inspiration through the art of film 

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Banshees of Inisherin (2023)

“Perhaps he just doesn’t like you no more”

Destination: Ireland Genre: Drama/ Comedy

Set on a remote, fictional island off the coast of 1920s Ireland, this heart-wrenching yet hilarious tragicomedy follows the sudden collapse of a friendship based on a mutual desire to evade loneliness, unleashing a ripple of absurd and haunting consequences. The Banshees of Inisherin, doubling as a poetic allegory for the Irish Civil War, is also a love letter to Ireland’s unspoilt west. Shot on location in Achill Island and Inis Mór, the film bathes every windswept cliff, rolling green pasture, and ancient stone wall in a raw, ethereal glow.

With its brooding skies and breathtaking solitude, the landscape offers more than just a backdrop- it calls to travellers seeking escape, reflection, and a deeper connection to nature and Irish history. It's the kind of scenery that makes you want to breathe deeper, walk slower, and stay longer.

Explore the filming locations

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The Wicker Man (1973)

“You'll simply never understand the true nature of sacrifice”

Destination: Scotland Genre: Folk Horror

One for the horror fans. In this haunting folk mystery, Edward Woodward plays a devout Christian police officer from mainland Scotland, summoned to a remote island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. His arrival sets off a slow-burning descent into local folklore, as he becomes ensnared in surreal pagan rituals, fertility rites, and a community cloaked in secrecy.

Shot in the Scottish Highlands, director Robin Hardy transports us back thousands of years to Celtic tradition, making us tap into a deeper, darker, primal side of Britain that’s been forgotten- ancient stone ruins, maypole dancing and eerie rituals. The lush, pastoral beauty of the island’s springtime landscape stands in stark contrast to the film’s looming dread, making the final act all the more disturbing- still haunting us more than half a century later.

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Whistle Down the Wind (1961)

“You missed Him this time, but He'll be coming again”

Destination: Lancashire    Genre: Crime/Thriller

This beloved British crime drama follows three church-going siblings on their Lancashire farm who believe they have Jesus Christ hiding out in their cow barn. With the help of their Sunday school peers they innocently attempt to shelter him from the grown-ups through fear that they may come to persecute him again. He’s actually a wife-murdering escaped convict, but it’s the thought that counts. 

Whistle Down the Wind, though shot in black and white, stunningly captures the rawness of the farmland fields and wild rolling hills of rural England, perfect for a birdwatching or walking holiday. 

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Trainspotting (1996)

“Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?”

Destination: Edinburgh    Genre: Crime Drama

A cult classic that captures the chaotic underbelly of 1990s Edinburgh like no other. Based on Irvine Welsh’s incendiary novel, the film follows a group of lost heroin addicts as they stumble through euphoric highs and crushing lows in a city caught between its historic charm and modern disillusionment.

Behind the grime of the bleak streets is a kind of brutal beauty- a hypnotic, hyper-stylised portrait of Scotland’s urban edge. Not your typical postcard of Edinburgh, but for fans of counterculture, music, and bold, unfiltered storytelling, Trainspotting offers a cinematic dive into a city that’s as complex and unforgettable as the characters who haunt it.

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Watership Down (1978)

“They'll never rest until they've spoiled the earth”

Destination: Hampshire Downs Genre: Family Drama

This eco-conscious animated classic, adapted from Richard Adams’ novel, is an epic survival story wrapped in the soft glow of the English landscape. Following a group of rabbits fleeing the destruction of their warren, it charts a perilous journey through idyllic meadows, tangled woods, and misty hills that are as enchanting as they are unforgiving.

Set in the real-life Watership Down in Hampshire, the film turns rolling chalk hills and gentle streams into a mythic terrain—at once tranquil and terrifying. Nature is both sanctuary and threat, and every breeze through the long grass seems to carry ancient, unspoken wisdom. The animation, though stylised, captures the raw spirit of the British countryside in a way that lingers long after the credits roll.

The Q Lazzarus Effect

The rise, fall, resurrection, and untimely death of Q Lazzarus, and how Western society continues to fail Black women who dare to dream of the spotlight.

Like most, my introduction to Q Lazzarus was through The Silence of the Lambs. Specifically, the infamous scene where the Ted Levine’s Buffalo Bill dances to Goodbye Horses in a kimono, toying with his nipple piercing and applying a buttery peach lipstick- his victim’s scalp perched atop his own head.

The song quickly became a cult classic alongside the Big Five winner, solidifying itself as a bona fide cultural moment of the 20th century. For year I have been enamoured with it, the power behind the voice and the haunting, dreamlike harmonies make it a timeless, unforgettable track. But it’s not just the sound that gives it such weight; its profound lyrics truly make it a work of art that holds space in the depths of your gut. According to William Garvey, songwriter and good friend of Q, the lyrics are about “transcend[ing] over those who see the world as only earthly and finite”. In Hindu philosophy, “horses” represents the five senses, and so the title lyrics “Goodbye Horses, I’m flying over you” translates to a rejection of the senses that keep us tied to the physical realm- the singer desperately clinging to the hope of a spiritual enlightenment, but knowing that eventually she must return back to Earth to process her grief.

Yet, I must admit that it wasn’t until I heard about the upcoming release of Eva Aridjis Fuentes’ new documentary about Q’s life that I realised this is, in fact, a Black woman's voice- not an obscure, male-led British post-punk band.

I feel awful about my assumption, but was it really just my mistake, or was it a consequence of something bigger? The industry has long refused to embrace Black women outside the rigid boxes it assigns them, and it begs the question- would Q Lazzarus’ career have been different had she been a white man with ambition and something to say? Why did the music industry refuse to see her for the star she clearly was?

The stars aligned

It’s mid 1980’s New York and there’s a snowstorm blowing a hoolie over the Manhattan sunset. Big shot, award-winning director Jonathan Demme has some urgent Hollywood biz to attend to. He’s got no time to be wandering the frozen streets in a blizzard, so he hails a cab. Childminder, cab driver, and musician Diane Luckey sees the snow battering his $2,000 suit and pulls over. Now, Demme must’ve seemed like a flashy guy, because Diane feels compelled to ask him if he works in the music industry, to which he replies, “Not exactly.” Diane is suspicious. She knows what’s up. So she coyly slips her demo tape into the cassette player, hoping for just this reaction…

“Oh my god! What is this and who are you?” Demme gasps in the back seat, mesmerised by the haunting yet ethereal vocals and new-age but ancient sound. He became an instant believer. He featured Q’s music in several of his films, beginning with Something Wild (1986), where her track “Candle Goes Away” appears, and then Married to the Mob (1988), which marked the first use of Goodbye Horses on screen. But it was The Silence of the Lambs (1991) that would immortalise both the song and Q Lazzarus in pop culture history.

So then Q became an international superstar and lived happily ever after… Is what would have happened if she looked like Siouxsie Sioux and dressed like Adam Ant.

Too Black to Back

Q Lazzarus was never offered a record deal. No chart-topping hits. No press interviews. She had a powerful voice, a striking look, a cinematic origin story and still, the doors stayed shut. Dead-bolted by the big burly bouncer of the Pretty Princess VIP Club. And it certainly wasn’t because she didn’t have the creds, she had all the backing from Demme, a now Oscar-winning director, she just simply didn’t fit the mould. She was a large Black woman with dreadlocks and a gothic style- a glitch in the algorithm. Too Black for the alternative charts and too weird for the Black charts.

Refusing to give in to the industry’s expectations, she vanished. Not into mystique or myth, but into the brutal reality that often awaits those who are denied the space to exist where they ought to thrive. She turned to crack cocaine, spent years in an abusive relationship that isolated her and ended up behind bars. A trajectory far too many Black women face- she wasn’t nurtured or guided, she was discarded and in the absence of opportunity or support, she did what so many do: went into survival mode.

All things pass

It’s pretty devastating but it’s not all a big sob story, she did get back on her feet, she quit the drugs, settled down in a healthy marriage and raised a child. She lived a full life in near-anonymity, working and healing. And maybe, after everything, that was enough for her.

Then in 2019, the stars aligned once more- because of course they did, in another big yellow taxi. Director Eva Aridjis found herself singing along to Neil Young’s Heart of Gold with her cab driver when a strange feeling crept in: the voice, the face, the energy, it all felt very familiar. Before getting out, Aridjis took a chance. “You ever heard of Q Lazzarus?” she asked. At first, the driver brushed it off. She’d spent years dodging journalists and curious fans, deliberately slipping out of the spotlight and keeping her past to herself. But just as Aridjis was about to step out of the cab, the driver looked at her and said, quietly, “Yes, I’m Q. How did you know?”

Just like that. A legend in hiding, revealed not with a spotlight or a stage, but through a shared song in the front seat of a cab. Shortly after, they began working on a documentary that would finally tell the story Q had kept close for so long—the rise, the fall, and the woman behind the voice.

immortalised

After a lifetime’s worth of trying, push-back, succeeding and faltering had finally started to come to fruition, Q broke her leg and was hospitalised.

“She died the way Black women die when they go to hospital…through neglect. Look at the data. How many Black women die in surgery or during childbirth, compared with other races? It’s an ugly truth.” says her son, James.

The statistics are horrifying—Black women in America are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. Disbelief, dismissal and delay is all too often experienced by BAME women. These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re systemic patterns. Q Lazzarus survived the music industry. She survived addiction, abuse, and decades of silence. But in the end, it was the system—again—that failed her.

The documentary, Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus, is now complete. Alongside it comes a posthumous album—her first and only—which will finally bring her unreleased music into the world. Not just the one iconic song, but the full picture. The sound of a woman who had everything to say and no platform to say it from—until now.

It’s a bittersweet legacy. Q didn’t get her flowers while she was alive. She didn’t get the glitzy comeback or the viral rediscovery arc. What she got was something quieter, more complicated. But now, her voice is being heard again—not through a horror movie, not through myth, but on her own terms.

And maybe that’s the real goodbye in Goodbye Horses—not a letting go of dreams, but of the limits placed on who gets to have them.

Q Lazzarus has passed on. But her voice, finally, is immortalised.

Nosferatu.

After decades relegated to children’s cartoons (none quite as sophisticated as his Spongebob Squarepants cameo), Count Orlok rises from his ancient sarcophagus once again to terrorise a new generation of audiences. I was so compelled by Eggers’ take on Nosferatu that I went to see it twice- here’s my little review, if you care.

Few directors today can rival Robert Eggers’ mastery of atmosphere. His ability to immerse audiences is unparalleled, and with every frame he really propels you into the decaying heart of 19th century Gothic Europe. From the get-go Nosferatu reaches out its cold, rigor mortised hand and mercilessly drags you into its world, to hear the echo of dripping water, smell the damp rot of ancient flesh and stone, and feel the oppressive weight of its looming dread.

When you strip it all back to the bone, Nosferatu is a twisted fairytale about possession and obsession. It retells the story of an undead Romanian nobleman awoken from an ancient slumber by the call of the lonesome Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), misunderstood and unconnected to the realm she exists in. She calls out to the darkness for comfort and is met with the fierce craving of a creature who longs to possess as much as he hungers for blood. Orlok becomes both her captor and her saviour, offering her the attention and understanding she yearns for, albeit in a parasitic form.

The film’s haunting visuals underscore the grim beauty of their connection, one forged not out of love, but out of mutual need. The repressed bride seeks escape from the mundanity of her life, while Nosferatu seeks a vessel to consume, someone who might endure the curse of eternity alongside him.

The reveal of the Count’s character design, kept under wraps throughout the marketing, was a particular highlight for me. Bill Skarsgard is completely unrecognisable beneath heavy, beautifully crafted prosthetics, a controversial broom-like moustache, and claws long and pointy enough to give Salad Fingers a run for his money. Yet, obscured as he is in costume, his immense talent and commitment shine through. His Orlok floats from scene to scene with a predatory yet regal grace, his presence hypnotic and nightmarish, with a guttural voice that sounds like gargled blood and meat.

Opposite him, Lily-Rose Depp delivers a staggering performance reminiscent of horror’s defining greats like The Exorcist and Possession. Depp’s physical performance has a rabid yet trance-like quality to it, as if she’s caught in the grip of something beyond her control, like a helpless fly on a spider’s web she writhes and convulses, eventually surrendering to the unseen force. Like Isabelle Adjani’s infamous breakdown in Possession, Depp is both unsettling and mesmerising. Her doe-eyed, breathless delivery makes Ellen feel not just like a victim, but a woman caught in limbo between terror and rapture.

Nosferatu promises a visual feast steeped in rich symbolism and unsettling dreamscapes. The cinematography weaves folkloric, religious and sexual imagery into its fabric; thick, snake-like roads writhe toward the fortified castle, their winding paths evoking both temptation and impending doom. The crossroads, subtly forming an inverted crucifix, hint at damnation and the perversion of salvation. Like a photo-negative of Christ, Orlok siphons blood rather than offers it as a devotion. He rises not in divine glory but in reanimated decay, a grotesque parody of resurrection. Where Christ redeems lost souls, Orlok drains them, delivering not salvation, but disease and torment. The cut to the imposing spires of the fortress following the moment of conception is a masterstroke of visual storytelling, transforming the castle into both a phallic monument of dominance and an inescapable prison.

Eggers crafts an aesthetic that is not just quintessentially gothic, but authentically folkloric- his lens capturing a world where power, desire, and the supernatural collide in haunting, painterly compositions.

Nosferatu (2024) is not just another highly stylised adaptation of the Bram Stoker classic, but a poignant exploration of loneliness, longing, and the allure of escaping reality by embracing the darkness. It’s a reminder that sometimes the things we call out to in desperation may answer back- but not always in the way we’d hoped.

Dark Tourism: Ethical Borders

Some people love to sun it up in The Caribbean, others fancy a snowy ski trip in the Alps, and then there are those who save up their hard earned cash to take a stroll around a nuclear disaster site or serial killer tour. I’m not here to judge (I am one of those people). It’s called ‘dark tourism’—the rapidly growing phenomenon I first discovered through David Ferrier’s hit Netflix series Dark Tourist, where he travels to off-beat destinations all over the globe to find the ultimate morbid experiences. People are trading sandy beaches for sobering history lessons, and it does get me thinking- what compels some people to walk in the footsteps of tragedy, and what’s the moral scorecard for doing so?

From wartime reenactments and ‘famous’ cemetery visits to eerie ghost walks, UFO hotspots and genocide museums, the world of so-called dark tourism opens up unsettling yet intriguing questions about the human psyche and our fascination with the macabre. I suppose the main questions I want to explore here are; why are we so fascinated with death, and can dark tourism ever be ethical, or is it inherently exploitative?

Why Are We Drawn to the Dark?

Humans have always been naturally curious about the grisly side of life, we see it everywhere in our culture from horror films to true crime, we even have a whole day dedicated to it where children dress up and pretend to be icons of the macabre. But why?

Some are driven by curiosity and empathy, trying to understand and honour the stories of those who’ve suffered. Visiting sites like Auschwitz, the Anne Frank Museum and the Killing Fields can help people connect with tragedy, in a way that a classroom can’t. For me, I think my fascination comes from the allure of exploring the unknown—the chance to uncover hidden stories of tragedy, piece together the mysteries of the past and really delve into the darker corners of history.

Dark tourism can open doors to understanding, offering insights into history, spirituality, and the complex layers of human psychology. Psychologist Nina Strohminger suggests that people may be attracted to the macabre because it's an example of "benign masochism", the tendency to seek out negative experiences for the sake of enjoying constrained risks. In other words, people indulge in horror and visit morbid hot-spots because they know that they can explore a thrilling, more sinister world from a place of safety. One can still chase that eerie, heart-pounding feeling you get when walking through an abandoned asylum but subconsciously know you’re not in danger, almost like rock climbing knowing there’s a safety net underneath you. You trick your brain into triggering your fight or flight response and enjoy the pleasure of the adrenaline rush.

Red Flag or a Lesson in Humanity?

One of my biggest ethical concerns for dark tourism is the commercialisation of death. When sites of suffering are transformed into profitable tourist attractions, it can feel very uncomfortable and exploitative. Gift shops and selfie opportunities risk trivialising the horrors that happened in that space. A concentration camp should never be a backdrop for an instagram post opportunity, yet it happens, and far too often. Death is not a spectacle, and treating it as one diminishes its cultural and emotional weight.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth is how dark tourism impacts the families of those who suffered. Some memorials serve an educational purpose, ensuring that history is remembered with the gravity it deserves. But others feel more like macabre amusement parks, profiting from pain with little regard for those left behind. Visiting the sites of war crimes or mass killings should come with a sense of reverence, not just morbid curiosity.

But dark tourism doesn’t have to be exploitative. It can be a way to confront history, to learn, to remember, and to reflect. It all comes down to how we approach it. Before stepping into a place marked by tragedy, it’s worth asking: What happened here? Why does it matter? What will I take away from this? Understanding the significance of a site is the first step to engaging with it meaningfully.

Respecting local customs is just as important. Sacred sites and memorials often have rules—following them is the least we can do. In some places, photography is discouraged or outright banned, and for good reason. Snapping a selfie at a concentration camp or mass grave site is, at best, tone-deaf and, at worst, deeply offensive.

Perhaps the best way to engage with dark tourism ethically is to ensure that our visits contribute something positive. Supporting sites and tours that reinvest in local communities, educational initiatives, or preservation efforts can make a difference. If a place profits off suffering but does nothing to educate or honor its past, it might be worth reconsidering the visit altogether.

At its best, dark tourism is a lesson in humanity—one that reminds us of our history, our mistakes, and the people who came before us. But it’s a lesson that requires care, respect, and a willingness to engage with the past for more than just a thrill.