Out Friday | Cert: 15 | ★★★★✩
Actor-director Ramola Garai (I Capture the Castle, Vanity Fair) presents a bold and ambitious feminist fantasy horror in her feature debut Amulet. The film stars God’s Own Country’s Alec Secareanu, Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake, Downton Abbey, The Crown) and Swiss actor Carla Juri and features a haunting score courtesy of first time film composer Sarah Angliss.
The story revolves around Tomaz (Secareanu), an ex-soldier from an unnamed foreign war living in London as a refugee and haunted by his past actions. When the shelter he’s been sharing with other refugees catches fire, leaving him homeless, the young man is accosted by Catholic nun Sister Claire (Staunton) who offers him a place. He is to share a decaying, claustrophobic house inhabited by Magda (Carla Juri) and her dying mother (Anah Ruddin) who’s been confined to her room for some time. As he starts to fall for his new companion, Tomaz can’t ignore his suspicion that something evil and insidious might be living alongside them.
With clear Giallo — a horror sub-genre made famous by Italian director Dario Argento — influences and an extra helping of phantasmagorical flair, Garai mixes fantasy with hypernaturalistic sensibilities to give us a truly unique and rather ambitious piece of filmmaking. The fact that she has done this on her very first outing as a feature filmmaker is even more impressive.
Culminating in a truly bonkers fantasy sequence, Amulet saves its best and most daring aspects until the very last with a finale that is as technically impressive as it is decidedly out of this world. With hints of Peter Strickland’s equally outlandish and vibrantly coloured retro body of work, Garai manages to subvert the horror genre to deliver a strong and unambiguous feminist message all the while demonstrating her bourgeoning talent as a genre filmmaker.
Elevated by Laura Bellingham’s stunning cinematography and by 2 inspired central performances courtesy of Secareanu and Juri, Amulet is the surprise success story of this post-pandemic era.
It is a film that manages to deliver a strong feminist message with a hefty philosophical weight all the while broaching themes such as generational trauma. Truly impressive stuff.