‘Relic’ buzziest horror film of summer for good reason
Dread movies.
Audiences like jump scares and beheadings and whatnot. Or so they say. Do they really?
I’ve always argued that the scariest part of “Halloween,” surely one of the great horror films of all time, is dusk, just before darkness settles on the town; the real slaughter is yet to come, but you know something bad is looming.
is
underrated
in
horror
‘Relic’
Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin, Bella Heathcote.
R for some horror violence/disturbing images, and language.
Available on Video on Demand.
Dread, in other words.
“Relic,” Natalie Erika James’ terrific
debut feature and the buzziest horror film of the summer, is infused with dread. That doesn’t mean she and Christian White, who co-wrote the script with her, haven’t included some old-school elements, as well. This is a horror film, after all, with some of the trappings you expect from the genre.
But it’s also a heartbreaking meditation on watching someone you love slip way, until they aren’t who they were anymore. The beauty of a horror film is that such fears can be manifested in so many ways.
Edna (Robyn Nevin) lives alone in a crumbling old house in the Australian countryside. A worried neighbor who hasn’t seen her for a few days calls her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer), who hasn’t kept in close contact with her mother lately. Kay and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) travel from Melbourne to the country and find the empty house.
It’s messy, with black mold starting to grow along the walls. They find Post-It Notes with reminders of simple tasks — along with stranger messages like, “Don’t follow it.” Kay knows Edna has been forgetting things, but hadn’t realized the extent of her increasing dementia.
Kay and Sam, along with neighbors, search the woods and surrounding area for Edna and turn up nothing. There’s an odd visit from a neighbor boy who is afraid to come into the house.
And then one morning Kay comes downstairs and Edna is standing in the kitchen, making tea.
“One sugar, right?”
She acts as if nothing has happened, nothing has gone wrong, except for an alarming bruise on her chest. I guess I just went out, she tells Kay by way of explanation, as if that solves anything.
It doesn’t, and things will get more complicated from there, as the relationships between the three women, temporarily housed under one decaying roof, come to the fore.
Kay thinks Edna should move to an assisted living home. Sam, whose life is a bit adrift at the moment, wants to move to the country and take care of her. Edna, for her part, is happy keeping things just as they are, thank you very much.
But that’s not possible. Edna’s behavior is erratic; sometimes she is sweet (though bitingly funny), but sometimes she flies off into fits of rage, forgets entire conversations and behaves strangely, in ways that put her and others in danger.
As her condition accelerates, so seemingly does the deterioration of the house. The disrepair takes on a malevolent feel. And Kay begins having horrific dreams.
James makes some confident decisions in the film’s last act, showing a welcome trust in the audience, particularly for a debut feature. She also gets fascinating performances out of her actors — each does a lot with a little. The performances aren’t as muted as they are quietly, intensely focused.
The best horror films — “The Exorcist,” say — scare us because no matter how bad things get, they make you feel like that bad thing could happen to you. The stories remain relatable, the characters fully human, even if they aren’t anymore.
In “Relic,” James manages that trick by taking a real fear — the loss of one’s mind, bit by bit, or the pain of watching it happen to a loved one — and never abandons it, from beginning through the final, shattering image.