38. Amulet; movie review

 

AMULET

Cert 15

99 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong violence, gore, horror, sexual violence

I really wished I'd had time to stay for the question and answer session after Sheffield Showroom's special Celluloid Screams screening of Amulet.

It would have certainly given me insight into what director Romola Garai had admitted was a 'strange film' when she introduced it.

Amulet has won awards at festivals across the globe and that reputation has earned Garai's "labour of love" slots at multiplexes.
But I have to admit, I really struggled to understand it. Indeed, I even wondered whether I was meant to.

Or was it an allegory which flew over my thick head?

On the face of it, we have Tomaz (Alec Secareanu), a former soldier who has a dark secret from his time as a border guard.

In the film's early scenes we see him digging in a forest and discovering a carved figure of a woman with a headdress.

Then a bearded older Tomaz awakes from his dream and is lying in cardboard city among London's many homeless.

After a fire at that camp results in him being injured, a nun (Imelda Staunton) comes to his rescue and offers him a home.

However, we all know this is a horror film and the mold-ridden house and its occupants are creepy to put it mildly.

His host is a strange young woman (Carla Juri) who can never go out because she is the sole carer for her dying mother (Anah Ruddin).

Anyway, in return for lodgings, Tomaz accepts the task of trying to make the house more hospitable.

and it turns out to be the worst mistake of his life.

The problem is that the melodramatic music, constant flashbacks and blackouts make the narrative very difficult to follow.

And, only when I was walking away from the cinema did the penny drop as to what might have happened.

In other words, while there was an interesting concept, there are too many distractions for the horror to take its full effect on the audience.

Some horror aficionados clearly feel differently and perhaps I need more imagination.

Reasons to watch: Highly rated horror

Reasons to avoid: Very complex plot

Laughs: None

Jumps: Two

Vomit: Yes

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 5.5/10

Did you know? Amulet derives from the Latin amuletum "thing worn superstitiously as a charm against spells, disease, etc." It was not recorded in English until circa 1600.

The final word. Romola Garai: "I’ve always been very into creatures, so I guess that leans more into mythological or folklore horror as opposed to maybe ghosts. When I was a child I was very impacted by seeing creature work, The Dark Crystal and things like that, they made a really big impression on me." Jumpcut Online

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