Shudder Saturday: Fréwaka (2025)

You may not love Fréwaka, you may not like it as much as I did (I didn't love it, but I did like a lot of what it set out to do), but if you're a horror movie fan then it's about time you started to remember the name Aislinn Clarke, a talented Irish writer-director who is now two for two when it comes to features. Her debut feature, The Devil's Doorway, seems to be a bit forgotten already, but maybe people will start to rediscover it on the back of this, a film which takes a very different approach to subject matter that ends up ultimately commenting on the same cultural and historical bloodstains that her first film explored.

Clare Monnelly plays Shoo, a woman who ends up sent to look after Peig (Bríd Ní Neachtain), a recovering stroke victim who also has delusions and paranoia. Is Peig affected by illness, or is she simply more aware of a very real threat around her that others can't always see? As things start to become more strange, Shoo has to struggle to maintain her own grip on a situation that brings up some startling revelations and a necessary exploration of her own family.

I don't want to reveal too much about Fréwaka, although some will think I have done so already, and I don't want to bang on about the aspects that seemed most intriguing to me, considering they could just as easily be dismissed by other viewers. Suffice to say, it's a layered and effective psychological horror that can be viewed through a number of different lenses. Clarke is comfortable enough with her material to remove ambiguity, but she's also canny enough to leave many things unseen, which allows everyone to have their own interpretation of things, whether it is the characters dealing with other characters or viewers dissecting the final scenes and considering the implications. That may sound like a paradox, but I believe that things end definitively, yet also includes wiggle room if you want to pick and choose what to take literally, and who you do or don't believe.

Monnelly is very good in the lead role, and her character is suitably kept on the back foot throughout most of the runtime. She is clearly processing a lot of baggage, but also trying to do her best for those who are relying on her. Neachtain is also very good, and quite obviously in possession of some extra knowledge that gives her an advantage over her "carer", for a while anyway. There aren't too many other characters you need to keep track of, but Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya does well with her all-too-brief amount of screentime, and comes in and out of the narrative just enough to make her very last scene surprisingly effective and impactful.

I know that I have been annoyingly vague about this, but I want other people to discover it without any preconceptions. It's not going to terrify you, nor is it going to make you jump, but it builds a great atmosphere of strangeness and dread throughout, culminating in a finale that should satisfy those who have been taking note of the lore being presented throughout the rest of the runtime. And, as the end credits rolled, I knew that I would happpily rewatch it any time, and I knew that I was long overdue trying to convince everyone else of what a great talent Clarke is. 

8/10

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