Frewaka

About this episode

The episode discusses the film Frewaka, exploring its themes of Irish folklore and family trauma.

Irish fairies, Catholic guilt and one extremely ominous red door. Frewaka is exactly the sort of film FolknHell should fall for, which made it all the more annoying when it kept wandering off into the mist with its own plot. Episode summary Frewaka arrives wearing all the right clothes for folk horror. Remote Irish village. Fairy lore. Iron nailed up around the house. Bells in trees. Missing children. Family trauma. Village oddballs. A goat, naturally. It is thick with the sort of atmosphere that makes you sit up and think, right, here we go. And for a while, it really does feel like we are in safe, dread-soaked hands. Shoo, still reeling from her mother’s death, takes a care job with Peg, an elderly woman living in a lonely old house full of rules, warnings and the sense that something is very wrong just outside the frame. From there the film starts digging into changelings, inherited fear, buried history and old supernatural debts, all wrapped up in Irish folklore and religious unease. There is a lot here to admire. The imagery is strong, the mood is properly eerie, and when Frewaka lands on a creepy idea, it really lands. The trouble is that it also seems oddly determined not…

People in this episode

Hosts: Andrew Davidson, Dave Houghton, David Hall

Topics covered

• folk horror
• Irish folklore
• supernatural
• family trauma
• Catholic guilt

Keywords

• Frewaka
• Irish fairies
• Catholic guilt
• folk horror
• supernatural debts

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Frewaka

Places: Ireland, remote Irish village

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