RELIC

OUT 18 JANUARY / CERT 15 / 89 MINS

Inspired by her grandmother’s battle with Alzheimer’s, Natalie Erika James’ assured debut is the best Aussie horror since The Babadook and a moving meditation on mortality, motherhood and memory. After elderly widow Edna (Robyn Nevin) goes missing, daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) arrive at her ramshackle home to be greeted by locked doors and Post-it notes. When Edna returns a few days later with no recollection of her recent walkabout, she has a nasty mark on her chest that keeps spreading. As an increasingly frantic Kay struggles to cope with her mother’s dementia and her own feelings of grief, long-buried secrets and a malignant presence slowly come to the fore, with the house transforming into a terrifying, expressionistic representation of Edna’s decaying mind. But despite its broody Lynchian leanings and body-horror climax, Relic remains, at its core, a heart-breaking family drama.