Amulet review: Romola Garai’s debut is extreme body terror tied in knots

Tomaz (Alec Secareanu), the not exactly hero of the new horror movie AmuletI cannot get any relief. The film begins with him managing a forestry outpost during an unnamed armed conflict, mostly out of the woods but carefree. At some later point, he became a bearded, haunted-looking man, staying at a homeless haven in London and earning some money as a day laborer. He also ties his hands before going to sleep. It is not entirely clear if this is for safety or if he is punishing himself.

When her shelter is burned, helpful nun Sister Claire (Imelda Staunton) offers her a job as maintenance staff for a decrepit home, helping Magda (Carla Juri) while tending to her elderly and fainted mother. Before supernatural elements enter the scene, Tomaz encounters real-life horrors at every turn.

Between Amulet, the recent Relicand next Saint Maud, elder care is getting a lot of attention from horror movies in 2020. But Amulet writer and director Romola Garai, making her film debut after an acting career in films like Angel and Amazing graceYou are not necessarily interested in the disturbing intimacy of care. At least not directly. Magda’s mother remains hidden for much of the film, known mainly for the noises she makes upstairs and her reputation for abusing herself and others. As Magda dutifully attends to her, Tomaz deals with the usual quirks of an old building without electricity, like a clogged toilet with a big, meaty creature like a bat, with what looks like an umbilical cord hanging from its midsection.

Photo: Nick Wall / Magnet Release

As bad omens pile up, Garai faces the scary movie’s considerable challenge of finding a plausible reason why the main character would continue to return to such a creepy and foreboding place. She’s clearly looking for some kind of stability and acquittal, and for a time, the bond she develops with Magda seems to provide it, balancing any suspicious noise or bad sleep. “Peace, quiet, home cooking … what more can the bachelor ask for?” Sister Claire asks rhetorically from the beginning. Horror fans who are familiar with ironic warnings and suspicious of characters who care about succulently prepared meat-based dishes may suspect that something is wrong with the kitchen. But Amulethorror of it is buried deeper, sometimes so deep that it is difficult to know exactly what is happening on a larger level of history.

The film periodically returns to Tomaz in his solitary outpost, where he meets a woman named Miriam (Angeliki Papoulia) and offers him refuge. Little by little, the back story begins to converge with the present; We see Tomaz unearth an amulet in the woods, and then we find the same carved pattern on the roof of the ruined house that he can’t seem to leave. What happens between Tomaz and Miriam also informs the current action. The general scheme is telegraphed fairly early; Tomaz has no nightmares about his military duty because his experiences fill him with tenderness, for others or for himself. But as the film reveals more, the details of the current scenes become murkier.

It is the kind of darkness that can inhibit performances, however skillful they are. Secareanu conveys guilt and anguish without a moment of exaggeration, while Juri (who starred in the rather grotesque and valuable comedy) Wetlands) makes Magda’s devotion poignant and troublesome. When Magda and Tomaz dance to savor freedom, their exuberance quickly changes from enchanting to unsettling, making it clear how adrift she appears in the “real” world, where she’s not hovering in a dilapidated house, packed with movies from terror. -water and mold damage requirements.

Photo: Rob Baker Ashton / Magnet Launch

But all the actors are finally forced to play around with a strategy of leaving key motivations unsaid (and sometimes obtuse even when they do speak), and ultimately the film suffers. At first, its quiet concealment is eye-catching, much better to highlight the well-composed sound design. The first five to six minutes of the film are almost dialogue-free, and conversation remains sparse as the film communicates more with atmospheric visual blooms and the occasional tribute. (A famous photo of Psychopath is quoted, and the movie’s reliance on set design, not to mention its bloody climate, recalls the original Sigh) However, as Amulet It gets wilder in its final stretch, it also begins to feel more remote.

Perhaps it is a natural by-product of the way this well-made film plays on audience sympathies, and how that dynamic relates to the larger statements Garai wants to make about violence, guilt, and trauma. These are heady things that don’t make a movie as creepy, or as visceral as what seem to be its most extreme moments of bodily horror. Amulet try to unite serious drama with exaggerated gender satisfaction. Instead, it ends up tying itself in unsatisfactory knots.

Amulet now available for digital rental in services like Amazon and Fandango.