Aislinn Clarke on FRÉWAKA, Irish Folklore, and the Power of Language in Folk Horror

Image courtesy of Shudder

By Shannon McGrew

In Aislinn Clarke’s latest film FRÉWAKA, home care worker Shoo (Clare Monnelly) is sent to a remote village to care for an agoraphobic woman (Bríd Ní Neachtain) who fears the neighbors as much as she fears the Na Sídhe - sinister entities who she believes abducted her decades before. As the two develop a strangely deep connection, Shoo is consumed by the old woman’s paranoia, rituals, and superstitions, eventually confronting the horrors from her own past.  

For the release of FRÉWAKA, Creepy Kingdom’s Shannon McGrew spoke with writer/director Aislinn Clarke. During their chat, they discussed everything from the challenges of casting an Irish-language horror film to the deep-rooted folklore that inspired FRÉWAKA, and how vulnerability and authenticity shaped its creation. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today, Aislinn. To begin, how did this story come to be, and why did you decide to have it in the Irish language? 

Aislinn Clarke: I had written an Irish language film for another director a couple of years ago, and the producer said, Hey Aislinn, what about you making an Irish language horror film? I’d never thought about doing that before, and despite having been raised with the language and everything, I had to think about it for a bit. The more I thought about it, the more I thought there could be something interesting here. I didn’t take a script that I had and translate it. I just thought, what would an Irish language horror film be and why? We have plenty of horror material here in Ireland, so there’s a lot of stuff about inherited trauma and generational trauma and things like that. 

Clare Monnelly and Bríd Ní Neachtain deliver such superb, heartbreaking performances. Can you describe the casting process for bringing them into these roles?

Aislinn Clarke: It’s the kind of thing that should be really hard, and I thought it was going to be because Ireland is a small place, we only have so many people who are actors. Only so many of them speak Irish and would also fit the profile in terms of age, and so on. I thought this was going to be really hard to cast, and it’s going to be tricky, but actually it really wasn’t. It was super easy. It’s the easiest film I’ve ever cast. Clare Monnelly, who plays Shoo, is a powerhouse. She’s brilliant. She completely inhabits that character. She had been in that film I’d written for the other director, and she just felt like the right person. She’s phenomenal in the role. 

Can you discuss how you translated the film’s complex themes into visual symbolism, particularly through elements like mirrors?

Aislinn Clarke: It’s an Irish language horror film, and it’s dealing with a bunch of Irish issues historically, but also with Irish mythology. It’s possible to create something too niche and specific that it becomes alienating. What you want to do with some of the horror is almost tropy, like the basement scene, for example. How many horror movies have a basement scene? There’s something about that that tethers it and feels more familiar and comforting for an international audience. The basement is a super good metaphor for the subconscious, as well as for the unconscious, and therefore for the location of trauma and so on. With mirrors, as you point out, they’re kind of a returning metaphor in horror. Still, again, it’s like a doorway into your mind that can be used in that sort of way, almost like a literal doorway as well in terms of the other world in Irish mythology and folklore. 

Image courtesy of Shudder

You mentioned that you didn’t immediately agree to do this Irish-language horror film. What ultimately changed your mind and made you say yes?

Aislinn Clarke: Making films is hard, no shocker there [Laughs]. But in order to be able to get through the whole process, which is like having a child or something, it’s a big deal. I need to be very attuned with it. I need to feel like I’m doing a hundred percent of the right thing. I personally can’t approach it cynically; it had to feel very truthful to me. I wanted to do it for the right reason and for it to have a reason to be in the language. The whole world, the story, everything evolved out of that central idea of what an Irish language horror film is.

Folk horror can be such a unique and unsettling subgenre. What is it about folk horror that draws you in or continues to spark your interest as a storyteller?

Aislinn Clarke: I know you won’t be surprised to hear that Ireland is a very folksy kind of place. We never quite got rid of our pagan stuff. When they brought Christianity over here, they were like, start going to church, start going to mass, and we were like, I don’t know, can you make it a bit more pagan? And that’s what happened [Laughs]. 

If you have certain diseases, your grandmother may know an old man who lives two villages down, who was the seventh son of a seventh son. He knows how to deal with this [ailment], but he’ll use some ritual that’s very folksy and earthy, but he’ll also bring in the Virgin Mary and Holy Water [Laughs]. 

It’s all kind of wrapped up together in Ireland, and it’s just very culturally who we are, there is a kind of folksy pagan thing in our core. You go into Dublin and say to some modern person who works in a bank or something, Do you believe in Na Sídhe? They’ll say, 'Of course not, it’s 2025. ' But then, if you ask them if they would cut down a fairy tree, they’d be like, well, of course not! I’m not going to piss them off [Laughs]. We secretly still are like that; it’s just our vibe. 

What do you hope audiences walk away with after watching this film?

Aislinn Clarke: That’s an interesting question because I think when I’m approaching making a film, and I mean this in the least egotistical way, but I’m not thinking about how the audience might respond. If you do that, all you do is make a cynical film and come across as manipulative. One thing horror fans, I’m one myself, can smell a mile away is if they’re being manipulated. What they want is something that feels like a brand-new experience, something that feels completely genuine. There’s a vulnerability in doing that and just ripping yourself open and hoping people respond to it. The first screening of this, I was like, oh my God, people are going to hate this, they’re going to walk out, because you really don’t know [how they’ll react]. It’s only after you’ve done a few screenings and you’ve had a good response that you think, okay, it’s working for at least some people. I always want people to connect to it in some way, and sometimes you talk to people after screenings at festivals, and they connect to it in ways that you weren’t expecting or that are new, and that’s totally valid. As long as it connects, I’m happy. 

FRÉWAKA will be available to stream on Shudder April 25.