Relic
Emily Mortimer (Shutter Island) leads this haunted house horror as a woman searching for her dementia-ridden mother in their old country home. Co-stars Robyn Nevin (Top of the Lake) and Bella Heathcote (The Neon Demon).
When elderly mother Edna (Nevin) inexplicably vanishes, her daughter Kay (Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Heathcote) rush to their family’s decaying country home, finding clues of her increasing dementia scattered around the house in her absence. After Edna returns just as mysteriously as she disappeared, Kay’s concern that her mother seems unwilling or unable to say where she’s been clashes with Sam’s unabashed enthusiasm to have her grandma back. As Edna’s behavior turns increasingly volatile, both begin to sense that an insidious presence in the house might be taking control of her.
2020Rating: M, Horror themes, violence and coarse language89 minsUSA, Australia
Horror
- Director:
- Natalie Erika James (feature debut)
- Writer:
- Natalie Erika JamesChristian White
- Cast:
- Robyn NevinEmily MortimerBella HeathcoteChris Bunton
Relic / Reviews
Los Angeles Times
For most of its running time, Relic feels more like a chamber piece than a full-fledged horror outing, but a nail-biting third act ups the ante.
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Slash Film
Natalie Erika James’ debut doesn’t just tug at the heart, Relic wraps around it and steadily sinks its teeth into it.
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The New York Times
Deftly merges the familiar bumps and groans of the haunted-house movie with a potent allegory for the devastation of dementia.
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Rolling Stone
A haunted house stands in for strained mother-daughter relationships in this psychological horror film from Japanese-Ausssie director Natalie Erika James, who joins with three top actresses to mess with your head long after you turn out the lights.
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Hollywood Reporter
Relic takes its time, but exerts an ever-tightening hold on the imagination.
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Bloody Disgusting
What begins as a more straightforward yet psychological approach to haunted house fare explodes into full-blown horror in a wholly unexpected way, and Relic marks one audacious debut.
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Film School Rejects
Like Mike Flanagan before her, Natalie Erika James is a filmmaker who flawlessly blends terrifying horror with the ache of humanity.
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Variety
Natalie Erika James' striking, somber, strange horror debut follows three generations of women being drawn into the grandmother's dementia.
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RogerEbert.com
My favorite horror movie of this year’s Sundance Film Festival is Natalie Erika James’ terrifying “Relic,” a slow burn genre pic that erupts in a climactic final act that had me fidgeting and squeezing my hands together with anxiety.
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