Starring Emily Mortimer, Bella Heathcote, Robyn Nevin

Directed by Natalie Erika James

On Blu-ray and DVD, and streaming on Shudder

A daughter, mother and grandmother are haunted by a manifestation of dementia that consumes their family’s home.

Back at the start of November, just before Lockdown Mk II closed cinemas again, my final trip to a movie theatre was to see Australian Haunted-House/Body-Horror film, Relic. My colleague on these pages, Nick Joy, gave it an unequivocal 10/10 (you can read his review below) and I concurred with every word he said.

So, is there more to say now that the movie has come to a Blu-ray or DVD player, and is now streaming on Shudder, near you?

Yes, absolutely.

In this reviewer’s opinion this film is even better on second viewing – even scarier when you know where it’s going and what it’s about – and watched on a smaller screen in the (dis)comfort of your own home it packs just as much of a punch, if not a greater one.

Let’s get our bearings. Kay (Emily Mortimer) is summoned by police to her mother’s house when Edna (Robyn Nevin) goes missing. Feeling neglectful and guilty, Kay brings her own daughter, Sammy (Bella Heathcote) along to help. Edna is in the ever-tightening grip of dementia, and the first two acts of the drama – exactly one hour – explore with heart-wrenching honesty the generational dynamic as the three women are forced to tackle the horrible truth of what is confronting the family. In the final thirty-minute movement, Relic changes gear as their collective trauma is dramatised through genre horror at its very best.

In fact, it’s truly scary – like, proper frightening, as my kids would say. Why? Because all three characters are written, directed and performed with complete honesty, and that first sixty minutes is rooted in a meticulously drawn reality, one that is all too painfully familiar to anyone who has watched a parent or grandparent lose their faculties. So, when that gear change happens, you are so identified with them, the horror isn’t about jump scares, it’s about… you!

Superficially, and quite reasonably, Relic can be described as Alzheimer’s expressed as Possession-Horror, but the film is also underpinned by a profound exploration of the middle generation’s feelings of mortality when they see this happening to the generation ahead of them, and the younger generation’s awakening to the cycle of life and death into which they are now inexorably wound.

Sounds a bit heavy? Well, yes, it is challenging, but the story telling is terrific so you won’t feel like writing an essay about it until at least the second time around. You can just go along for the ride if you want to.

What about the home viewing experience? Oftentimes returning to a film on a domestic screen is just the same thing, but smaller. Not here.

At the heart of this film is Edna’s house – with its growing patches of mould and bewildering geography – emblematic of her own atrophying synapses. It is rendered with stunning observational detail, so that you can almost smell the encroaching mustiness. Who wouldn’t recognise the armchair that has stood so long in the same place it has its own sockets worn into the thinning carpet? Bringing this film into my own house added a certain disquieting frisson to the whole thing. I’m just into my seventh decade and I had to check myself every time my eyes flicked to my own décor and I asked, ‘Oh Lordy… am I turning into that?’

Watching Relic on video is like inviting an uneasy, inescapable and deeply unsettling truth across your threshold, one that made me question my own relationship with the four walls around me.

Oh yes, and the final scene… Some have found it bewildering, but I beg to differ. I think it is haunting cinematic poetry, the like of which I can’t remember having seen in any other movie.

Relic is my film of 2020. Our esteemed editor rolls his eyes when reviewers want to muck around with the scoring system, but surely with Nick’s take and mine, Relic ought be a clear and emphatic 20/20. Only kidding, Paul… 10/10

Martin Jameson

Natalie Erika James’ debut is a terrific and terrifying horror movie that is likely to remain with you for some time, and if you have personal experienced of a relative or friend with dementia, it might just break your heart.

Emily Mortimer (Shutter Island) is Kay, mother to Sam (Bella Heathcote – The Neon Demon) and daughter to Edna (Robyn Nevin – The Matrix Reloaded). The police contact Kay because her mother hasn’t been seen for a while. When they reach the house, it’s in a state of decay, and there’s no sign of mum. When she returns after three days in the wilderness, she won’t reveal where she’s been and starts to turn on those who love her.

It’s clear that she’s suffering from dementia, but it’s manifesting itself like possession by an entity, while also spreading the malaise to the house itself. Mould grows up the wall, windows start to close in, and eventually the characters begin to be sucked in to the house’s very structure. Mother Edna becomes a snarling, terrifying monster, and yet… she’s still their mum and grandmother.

The tension is beautifully ratcheted up without resorting to cheap jump scares. And when the final act unfolds, director James ramps up the terror – you’ll be clutching the side of your seat. It’s such a novel idea taking a cruel degenerative disease, externalising it, and finding parallels with the possession horror trope. And it really doesn’t end the way you think it will.

Verdict: A flawless, beautifully crafted horror debut with fantastic performances. If you can handle it, it’s one of the best chillers of the year. 10/10

Nick Joy