Master of Horror John Carpenter described horror as a reaction, and not a genre. An early scene in Irish director Aislinn Clarke’s folk horror Fréwaka, takes this to the extremes, eliciting a spine tingling reaction. If first impressions count, then Clarke gets out of the blocks quickly, showing her audience no mercy. But then, would we really want it any other way?

Fréwaka revolves around Siubhán Ni Bhroin, known as Shoo (Clare Monnelly), a primary care worker charged with caring for elderly stroke survivor Peig (Bríd Ní Neachtain). To Shoo’s surprise, she learns that Peig is beginning to show signs of dementia and suffers from delusions and paranoia. Shoo is also carrying the weight of her own emotional baggage, primarily the death of her mother, with who she shared a difficult relationship.

Catholicism is woven into Clarke’s cinema. Her feature debut, The Devil’s Doorway (2018), set in Ireland in 1960, follows two priests who are despatched by the Vatican to investigate a miraculous incident in a Magdalene Laundry. There’s a passing mention of these institutions, also known as houses for fallen women in Fréwaka. These represent a dark chapter in the Catholic church’s history, where young and vulnerable women were abused by the nuns that supervised their day-to-day running. Alongside, Tim Mielant’s Small Things Like These (2024) and Joe Murtagh’s series The Woman in the Wall (2024), one might perceive these onscreen stories as an antagonistic, albeit just force, by refusing to allow the Catholic church’s sins to be forgotten. What’s striking in Clarke’s sophomore feature is the slant she gives religious iconography. A statue of the compassionate Jesus Christ, shrouded in his white and red robe is as perturbing for the unease and fear it provokes as it is a source of comfort.

In Fréwaka, one can sense Clarke’s awareness that the characters background story are a source of myth and lore. In this type of storytelling it’s important to empower the characters to shape and influence the story, creating an intimate bond with the very thing that stirs their fear and stalks them either in their dreams or waking state. Essentially, it’s where the personal creates the story’s fanciful nature and grounds it within a set of rules. Clarke also creates a layered protagonist in Shoo, where the personal, otherness, superstition and supernatural intertwine. There are definite shades of other folk horrors, like Anthony Schaffer’s The Wicker Man (1973), in which an outsider arrives in a rural community, and is treated with suspicion. This rubs up against Shoo’s personal anxieties and the superstitious and supernatural peril both she and Peig find themselves in.

The English translation of Fréwaka is “roots”. It’s a fitting title given that much of the film is about the source of one’s pain. One of the most incisive observations in the film is when Peig says something to Shoo about the difficulty of getting rid of something. She’s referencing Shoo’s attempts to remove her mother from her life, by having all her things disposed of. Here, Clarke observes the conflict between the physical and the psychological or emotional, and how relationships and life experiences take root in our minds – memory is both a blessing and a curse. And also effective is the relationship between Shoo and Peig, which flits between ominous tension and humour. There’s something genuinely enjoyable about spending time with these two characters and watching them go back and forth, especially when Peig elicits a wry smile from Shoo.

The strengths of Fréwaka, however, reveal its limitations. The slant Clarke puts on religious iconography has some creative juice, but gives way to more pedestrian horror tropes and set-pieces. Then, Clarke struggles to maximise the use of character to build myth and lore. Instead, there’s a feeling that Fréwaka hums along nicely as a mainstream horror, but never manages to distinguish itself by building on its early spine tingling promise. The final impression contrasts to that energetic first impression. Clarke wades through the lethargy of troubled characters because of her struggle to tell a frightening tale that the film is crying out to be.

Fréwaka streams for free during the entire month of December as part of ArteKino – just click here now for more information.