Click here to copy URL

Amulet

2020

Romola Garai

Imelda Staunton, Carla Juri, Alec Secareanu, Paul O'Kelly ...

4.8

326

Horror The film explores the story of Tomaz, a refugee escaping war in his own country. Haunted by his past, he is offered a place to stay in a decaying, claustrophobic house, inhabited by an enigmatic young woman and her dying mother. As he starts to fall for his new companion, Tomaz can’t ignore his suspicion that something insidious might also be living alongside them.

	Author	Review
United States	Kate Erbland IndieWire	"An impressive first feature (...) that announces Garai’s arrival as a filmmaker to watch, no matter the genre."	POS
United States	Chris Evangelista SlashFilm	"[An] utter bore (...) 'Amulet' is the type of film where you spend more time noticing the production design than you do giving a shit about the story"	NEG
United Kingdom	Fionnuala Halligan Screendaily	"Romola Garai delivers a powerful feminist horror (...) 'Amulet' is deeply, deliberately mysterious, and all the more fun for it; the less viewers know going in, the more ferocious the ride."	POS
United States	Dennis Harvey Variety	"Romola Garai makes a distinctive feature directorial debut with 'Amulet,' even if this upscale horror drama is ultimately more impressive in the realm of style than substance"	NEU
United States	David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter	"Smart and stylish, with fun detours into lurid excess (...) This elevated neo-gothic is executed with a firm hand and a beguiling imagination"	POS
United States	Meagan Navarro Bloody Disgusting	"There are moments of great creativity (...) But this is a severe slow-burn where the payoff doesn’t quite make the preceding two-thirds of the film feel worth the wait (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"	NEG
United States	Perri Nemiroff Collider	"'Amulet' sucks you in, challenges you to try to put things into focus and then smacks you with a wallop of an ending that’ll leave you needing a few moments after the credits."	POS
United States	Brian Tallerico rogerebert.com	"There’s a major twist in 'Amulet' that feels a little cheap (...) The character work and tension-building didn’t quite work for me, but there are ideas and images here that I won’t soon forget."	NEU
United States	Toussaint Egan AV Club	"An evocative, confident debut, recalling the metaphorical horror of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook or Babak Anvari’s Under The Shadow, even as it announces the arrival of a singular new voice."	POS
United States	Manohla Dargis The New York Times	"Garai is clearly invested in creating juicy, complex gender roles. But her try at a gynocentric mythology falls lamentably short"	NEU
United States	Phil de Semlyen Time Out	"Deliciously karmic horror film (...) Garai has found an arresting way to position male sexual violence: as an age-old curse that brings with it the bitterest of consequences (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Leah Greenblatt Entertainment Weekly	"The movie casts a grim sort of spell; a brooding, stifled dread that creeps in quietly from the margins, and lingers long after the last triumphant frame"	POS
United States	Richard Whittaker Austin Chronicle	"Garai undoubtedly strikes a consistent mood of dread, amplified by Laura Bellingham's luxuriously squalid cinematography. Unfortunately, there's a lack of thematic coherence to her tale of dark magic (…) Rating: ★★½ (out of 5)"	NEU
United States	Pat Brown Slant	"Despite the carefully controlled structure of the whole, and the clarity of its central message, the final pieces of 'Amulet' have a slapdash feeling (…) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Jesse Hassenger Polygon	"Garai's debut feature is a strange and murky experience (...) 'Amulet' attempts to yoke together serious drama with over-the-top genre satisfaction. Instead, it winds up tying itself in unsatisfying knots"	NEG
United States	David Fear Rolling Stone	"The movie's ambitions exceed its grasp (...) What you're left with is a nice calling card, and one that genuinely makes you wonder what Garai will do next (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	NEU
United States	Justin Chang Los Angeles Times	"Garai gives voice to the female characters' silent fury and unmistakably adds her own, building a howl of rage that before long has come to sound like a chorus"	POS
Denmark	Karina Adelgaard Heaven of Horror	"If you enjoy horror movies to their core and don’t mind when things move slowly and then get brutal, you should definitely check out this one as well (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Sophie Butcher Empire	"A loose, hurried ending can't quite live up to the effective sense of dread created in the first two acts, but 'Amulet' is still a fascinating, nightmarish debut from Garai (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	NEU
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"The film might not fully absorb all its images and ideas, but it's stylish and well-acted, and leads up to a surreal image of evil (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	NEU

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.