RELIC

When an elderly woman disappears from her remote house on the edge of the forest, her daughter and granddaughter go there hoping to find her. When she reappears, they have a terrible feeling that the old woman has brought a sinister presence into her home.

Based on a seemingly typical premise, Natalie Erika James has created a work shrouded in deep unease, a horror film imbued with the fears of aging, the passing of time and losing one’s identity. Relic is a tale of decline and a family satire embedded in a genre film, as brilliant as it is anxiety provoking. The intensity created in this film is also very much due to the quality of its actors, including Emily Mortier and Robyn Nevin.