A Dark Song

A Dark Song

From FolknHell by Andrew Davidson, Dave Houghton, David Hall

April 16, 2026 · 44 min · Season 1 · Episode 20

About this episode

The episode discusses the film A Dark Song, exploring themes of grief, ritual magic, and the dynamics between the main characters.

A house sealed in salt is already a bad sign. Spending a year inside it with grief, lies and ceremonial magic makes it worse. FolknHell tackles A Dark Song : grief, ritual magic, guardian angels, and whether this eerie occult chamber piece counts as folk horror. The film is Liam Gavin’s 2016 occult chamber piece about a grieving mother, Sophia, who hires the abrasive Henry Solomon to guide her through an elaborate ritual based on The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage . What starts as a bid to speak to her dead child slowly reveals itself as something angrier, riskier and much more spiritually costly. “It gives you a peek at the architecture of the universe.” The conversation leans hard into what makes the film work so well. Andy, Dave and David love the stripped back set-up, the claustrophobic house, the drip feed of uncanny detail, and the way the film makes magic feel dangerous without ever tipping into anything daft. They spend plenty of time on the relationship between Sophia and Solomon, which shifts from mistrust and hostility into a bleak sort of dependence, with Catherine Walker and Steve Oram getting a lot of praise for carrying almost the whole film between…

People in this episode

Hosts: Andrew Davidson, Dave Houghton, David Hall

Topics covered

  • grief
  • ritual magic
  • folk horror
  • film analysis
  • character relationships

Keywords

  • A Dark Song
  • grief
  • ritual magic
  • folk horror
  • film review
  • character dynamics
  • Liam Gavin

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: A Dark Song, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage

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