Compared to horror films with other themes, those focused on lore, especially folklore, evoke a different emotional knee-jerk reaction from their audiences with their eerie tales keeping the uneasy viewers interested and engaged. This is where Aislinn Clarke strives in her second feature, Fréwaka (Fréamhacha), which had its New England premiere during the Boston Underground Film Festival. It is partially an Irish horror story based in lore and party mystery that is executed perfectly by Clarke, subverting expectations and leaving audiences in a state of disarray as everything comes to a head.
Clare Monnelly as Shoo in FRÉWAKA. Photo courtesy of Shudder.
The movie starts in 1973 as we’re focused on a wedding that has some mishap as the bride mysteriously vanishes. Some wedding crashers are dressed in straw-branded cloaks which cover their entire bodies and hiding their figures. We then cut to the bride seemingly possessed and being choked while covered in those same mysterious cloaks and levitating. Without missing a beat, the film then changes to modern day and shows an elderly woman taking her own life. The elderly woman is the estranged mother to our main character. She goes by Shoo (Clare Monnelly) as a nick name and is a personal care worker/case worker. She is engaged to her fiancée Mila (Alexsandra Bustryzhickaya) who is pregnant with their child, but Shoo has to attend to her mother’s passing and sort her house. However, thankfully, that work is cut short as Shoo takes on a new live-in job with agoraphobic Peig (Bríd Ní Neachtain).
Brid Ni Neachtain as Peig in FRÉWAKA. Photo courtesy of Shudder.
Shoo is one of the only people who can do the job for Peig as she doesn’t speak English. Shoo is an Irish speaker and is happy to have the job to escape the news of her mother, the tasks ahead related to that news, and doesn’t seem too afflicted in leaving Mila alone. Peig’s house, however, is similar to one of a hoarders — overstuffed, dirty, filled with creepy unsettling things (like taxidermy), and with an increasingly interesting and disturbing red door. As we learn that Peig suffers from dementia and delusions through Shoo’s company calling with concerns of Shoo’s ability to care for Peig, Shoo opts to stick with Peig and do the job, making the best out of a bad situation to avoid the realities back home. Fréwaka is a psychological horror that sinks its teeth into the audience as it puts on a stranglehold as the film runs, never letting the audience feel a sense of relief from existential dread.
Clare Monnelly as Shoo in FRÉWAKA. Photo courtesy of Shudder.
The reason why Fréwaka is so effective is due to Clarke’s ability to helm both the pen and the director’s chair to create a tense, dark, unsettling world for us to get lost in. She directs her two leads to masterful intensity. Bríd Ní Neachtain (The Banshees of Inisherin) delivers a powerful performance that is seeded in both her reality and one that fits the conditions the character has been given, while Clare Monnelly (Small Things Like These) as Shoo is unrelenting and knows not to humor Peig’s delusions, but the reality is she lets them seep into her subconscious more than she cares to let on. The two of them embody a world of unease in Fréwaka which is enhanced further by the haunting score by Die Hexen (You Are Not My Mother), taking this tale of delusion and uncertainty to new heights and putting a vice grip on the audience, who will surely have a hard time shaking it all off after the credits roll.
Screening during Boston Underground Film Festival 2025.
Available on Shudder April 25th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official BUFF Fréwaka webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews, streaming
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