#frewaka

Watching the trailer last night sent me absolutely buzzing because 1. it's Larian. I cannot understate how badly I need to disappear into one of their worlds again and 2. as I sat there I thought "someone involved in this has seen The Wickerman about two dozen times". So, I thought I'd spread a little folk horror cheer to tide us all over until we get more info about the game.

The Wickerman (1973) dir. Robin Hardy This movie is about a cult that you kind of want to join. You’re so bought in, it seems so cool, but by the end [SPOILERS] when the flames are licking up the wicker man and Howie is screaming and crying out to God and the goat is bleating and the chickens are shrieking you have to take a step back and go “oh shit, maybe that was…bad actually.” Wickerman walked so Midsommar could run.

2. The Wickerman (2006) dir. Neil LaBute The 1973 version's inferior but much funnier cousin. This Nic Cage remake is so stupid and so fun and you can actually watch it over and over because Cage chewing the scenery to a rotten pulp makes his eventual death go down a little easier. 

3. Midsommar (2019) dir. Ari Aster The obvious choice to get hype for a game with flower crowns and horrible burning deaths. An opiated Swedish lullaby where the sun never sets and the yonic energy never ceases. The movie that made a whole generation of women realize they're susceptible to cults.

4. Men (2022) dir. Alex Garland A flick about that grieving urge to go hide away alone in the countryside and why you SHOULDN'T do that. The landscape is lush and beautiful, the central cabin cozy and secluded, the town quiet and full of....men? What starts as a weird encounter with the cabin's owner ends with protagonist Harper arming herself against an army of nude men all wearing the same face.

5. It Follows (2014) dir. David Robert Mitchell An early Maika Monroe (think Longlegs) entry that isn't really folk horror but does embody some of my favorite folk horror tropes i.e. a shapeshifting antagonist with unclear motives and weird, sort of uncomfortable sex.

6. Woodshock (2017) dir. Kate and Laura Mulleavy Kirsten Dunst goes crazy with grief (and off a powerful, hallucinogenic strain of weed) and takes her death wish to the local woods where the trees speak and murder starts to ring in the undergrowth.

7. Enys Men (2022) dir. Mark Jenkin Another Woman Alone in the Wilderness movie but this one with an ornithological twist. The unnamed Volunteer becomes obsessed with a strange flower that unfurls into a Cornish folktale about past and future selves and places set against a backdrop of creeping, coastal lichen.

8. Fréwaka (2024) dir. Aislinn Clarke Part Irish folktale, part doomed sapphic romance, Gaeilge-language movie Fréwaka is a dizzying depiction of epigenetics and the way female trauma can soak into the very roots of a place. So good my friend and I bought horseshoe necklaces immediately after we watched.

@giftober 2025 | Day #15: "Free Choice" - last movie I watched