Natalie Erika James’ Relic is a slow-burn horror film that uses the source of its horror as an allegory for dementia. More specifically, what it’s like watching someone you love succumb to the decline of their own brain. It is a skillfully made, if uneven story, that can’t quite mix its two main elements to satisfactory results. In order to then review it, I think you have to examine the movie in three ways – how it works as a horror film; how it works as a presentation of dementia; and how it works as a combination of the two.
Relic begins with a woman named Kay (Emily Mortimer) and her daughter, Sam (Bella Heathcoat) traveling to their remote family home because Edna (Robyn Nevin), Kay’s mother and Sam’s grandmother, has gone missing. They expect the cause of her disappearance is due to her brain disease that’s getting worse. Once they arrive at the home, everything seems normal despite being abandoned with the exception of a seemingly hidden passageway in the upstairs area that’s covered in mold. One morning, Edna returns as though nothing is wrong, though we secretly learn that she believes she’s been possessed by a demon. The question remains if whether or not the demon is real, or if it’s the dementia talking. Or are they one in the same?
Firstly, as a horror film, I didn’t find Relic particularity scary, though it does contain elements that are unsettling, and first-time director Natalie Erika James has some real talent that I expect will find its potential within the genre. But for audiences expected a more straight-forward horror film, you will be bored. Kay has a few nightmares with upsetting imagery, but nothing that particularity chilled me.
As a look at dementia, the film is more successful. The frustration of all parties involved, along with the general morose atmosphere feels realistic to such a terrible situation. Especially a sequence when Kay visits a potential care facility to place Edna in. The simple view from a window is enough to be emotionally affecting. For anyone that has dealt with this issue in their life, I’m sure this film will strike true. The performances by Mortimer is especially good in conveying the situation, though I found Nevin to be too over the top.
Then it comes down to how these two elements mix…and, well, I never quite felt like they did until the film’s conclusion, which I’ll get to. It seemed to me that the horror aspects were intruding on the story because I could never buy them as real. I almost wish the film never told us Edna’s character had dementia, this way the allegory could reveal itself more naturally. Though I’m not sure if that would have made for a better movie. However, despite everything I just said, I found the film’s final scene to be a perfect marriage of all of its elements. For that one moment, Relic achieves its goal of presenting this disease through a horror prism. It just didn’t achieve it all the way through.
Grade: C+
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