Amulet (2020), Imelda Staunton, Alec Secareanu (Horror Movie Review)

October 20th 2020, 10:55am

Last Updated on December 21, 2021

PLOT: An ex-soldier is living out of a homeless shelter in England and is offered the chance to fix up a dilapidated house that he could stay in, rent-free as long as he helps with the repairs. Not a bad gig except that he shares the home with Magda and her (maybe) possessed mother. Still, though, free food and a home may be worth a bit of a demonic presence.

LOWDOWN: We start off with a soldier named Tomas (Alec Secareanu) from a country intentionally vague, maybe Eastern Europe? Deep in a forested area with his only responsibility, going about his day is at a checkpoint on a small, rarely used road. We then flash-forward sometime later to a bearded and homeless Tomas who spends his days doing construction and taping his wrists up (for others safety) at night. It’s a hell of a setup, and I like (at first) the mystery of who exactly he is and why he is so distraught. Is the house he intends to help repair a trap, or is there a presence worth saving? The one thing that stands above all is in AMULET (WATCH IT HERE) is its uneasy ambiance and the constant sense of dread.

Once Tomas is “saved” by Sister Claire giving him some sage advice, “Peace, quiet, home-cooked food … what more could the bachelor want?” he decides that even a rotting old house is better than the streets, and at least he’ll have some company. Magda is the sole resident who takes care of her dying mother locked in an upstairs room, and it’s the odd happenings tied to this mysterious mother where the actual film begins. It’s the relationship between Tomas and Magda that works wonders here. Both broken, peculiar, and unsure of how to even try and be happy, I appreciate how Juri and Tomas convey almost everything without dialogue. Nothing is gracious about them but have a solid bond over being broken emotionally. All of this is framed though the omnipresent ‘mother’ locked away upstairs.

Things cut back and forth between sh*t getting weirder at the house and the wartime guard duty Tomas had. I like the scenic setting change, yet I’m never precisely sold on it being an essential and constant story thread throughout the film. Just as things start to intensify with the house and the mother, we’d cut to the unnamed country, and over time, we eventually find out why Tomas fled. Without spoiling anything, this backstory didn’t need to be a drawn-out mystery as it didn’t change anything emotionally for the audience. Tomas is atoning (basically) the whole movie. The constant flashbacks took time away for the creepy woman in the attic and the other bad omens lying around like cut-up newspaper clippings of a missing man or the dead bat-like creature found in the toilet.

There are many ideas at play, and, for the most part, they work in unison to get under your skin and create this claustrophobic environment. Set in a house that seems to be dying or at least is a metaphor for the characters. Where this hits its stride, even if it takes a bit too long to get there, is its ballsy third act. I was hoping for this, and it delivers on the bloody, the weird, and the insane. Between the scene-stealing Imelda Staunton as Sister Claire or the odd and awkward Magda, I dug how ‘off’ everything felt and that AMULET didn’t question itself or revert to something more of a standard affair in the end.

On the flip side, there are some problems worth discussing. I’m all for a slow burn, something that takes its time building its world and lets the story breathe, but AMULET goes on too damn long. The flashback story killed the already slow pace and was information that, if presented in full, would have made for a more complicated character up front and may have worked better for the film. There’s a midsection drag that just takes you out of things, and though not the end of the world, it kills its own momentum and takes you out of the well developed mysterious nature of it all.

GORE: This uses blood and gore as a spice. It’s only used sparingly, but when it hits, it is the right amount.

BOTTOM LINE: AMULET isn’t perfect, and with a plodding second act, and at times, meandering script, I think this needed a bit more focus. AMULET could have been tighter in some places and, by doing so, would have kept the creepiness factor running on all cylinders. I can see this being a divisive film, as it has a strong arthouse vide (which I dig, btw) and is somewhat vague in its rules and mystical happenings: that and the snail’s pace used for two-thirds of the film. For me, it works more than it doesn’t, and as Garai’s first film, she hit the ground running. So let’s raise a drink (still in a pandemic, so maybe raise a few) to Romola Garai starting off strong in her directorial debut. In a world of remakes and sequels, I’m all for something strange and unique.

AMULET comes to VOD (WATCH IT HERE) on October 20th, 2020.