Fréwaka

Shortly after the death of her estranged mother, Shoo (Clare Monnelly) a primary care nursing student takes a placement in a remote Irish village to care for Peig (Brid Ni Neachtain) a reclusive, elderly woman who lives in fear, haunted by her experiences in a Catholic asylum. The house in the woods holds plenty of dark secrets and Peig’s paranoia begins to rub off on Shoo, whose own troubled, abusive past begins to catch up with her.

Aislinn Clarke follows up her spooky, found-footage creep show The Devil’s Doorway with another chilling religious horror that values atmosphere over cheap scares. Though the locked cellar with the red door covered in religious trinkets isn’t short on terror, Clarke’s careful direction and smart (predominately Irish-language) script ratchet up the tension slowly, building to a lyrical and frightening climax that combines traditional folklore with the religious trauma of the Magdalene laundries and culminates in a uniquely Irish feminist folk horror. The title, by the way, translates as “Roots”.

An expertly conducted atmospheric exercise […] The mythical and political Irish context of Fréwaka makes it stick, as it draws on lingering national guilt over the iniquities of the Magdalene laundries, and twists deep-seated folk imagery into uncanny nightmare fuel.

Guy Lodge, Variety

Mines Irish mythology and history for socially conscious spookery. 4/5

Tara Brady, Irish Times

Laced with ambiguity and climaxing with rare control and dread, Clarke hits a bullseye with a folk horror that nods to a modern Ireland haunted by its own past.

Hilary A White, Sunday Independent

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