phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2025

Frewaka



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 43m
Country: Ireland
Language: Irish Gaelic, English
Genre Tags: Horror
Plot Summary: Follow a student of nursing palliative care, who is plagued by a trauma from her past that has a disorienting effect on her present, her relationship, her career and her ability to function.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Irish folk horror. Nothing new, but expertly crafted. Consistently moody and creepy, nightmarish when it needs to be. Are pagan gods real, or is everything a metaphor for grief? Why not both? A disconcerting ride of evocative imagery and sound, leading to an inevetiable dark conclusion.


Outside Reviews:

Jim Vorel
Grade: 6.2 out of 10 - Mystical Irish Folk Horror Fréwaka Weaves an Unnerving Spell

Fréwaka is an impressively staged, very patient, occasionally languid film that benefits mightily from the strength of its central dyad and the evolving relationship between the two women, who are drawn together and ripped apart repeatedly by violations of superstition, trust and kinship. Even without the bonus of the Irish language, it would be speaking in a dialect we don't hear very often.


Guy Lodge
A Rattling Irish Horror Film Satisfyingly Blends Folk Traditions With Genre Tropes

Either way, "Fréwaka" is an expertly conducted atmospheric exercise, with a sharp, harsh understanding of closed rural communities free from any touristic Emerald Isle blarney. Production designer Nicola Moroney piles up the spooky iconography, but finds just as much menace and mystery in everyday domestic rot. Narayan Van Maele's cinematography manages shadowy claustrophobia even in broad-daylight exteriors, while an imaginative, offbeat score by avant-garde musician Die Hexen, heavy on chattering percussion, keeps us tense in our seats.