‘Amulet’ review: batshit body horror elevated by complex themes

The prospect of Imelda Staunton playing a well-meaning nun sounds like an ITV primetime programmer’s dream. But fans of the venerable British actor’s work might be warned that Staunton’s appearance as the big name draw in a small cast otherwise made entirely of new faces is something of a red herring.

• Read more: Romola Garai on Hollywood after #MeToo: “Acting is still a dirty game”

Amulet is what the ultra-knowing Gen-Z teens in the big fun 2022 reboot of Scream (can we all agree to call it Scream 5, please?) have as “evolved horror”. It’s a movement whose pioneers Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) and Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) quickly established their own set of rules governing form and theme, with plots aligning with modern conversations about race, mental health, gender and humanity and a focus on familial relations.

It’s a subgenre with its origins in 1970s folk horror – a school of moviemaking thrown into the spotlight by Shudder’s new documentary Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched. It’s also a world that speaks to today’s audiences, searching for cosmic solutions to modern problems in horoscope apps and TikTok crystal influencers by creating a reality in which demons, witches and malign forces are eternal – and in which events tend to unfold like a Greek tragedy toward the inevitable triumph of evil.

In Amulet, director Romola Garai has pulled off the feat not just of creating a quintessentially terrifying ‘evolved horror’, but of keeping the viewer guessing about which issue its morality is focused on for much of the movie. We follow Tomaz (Alec Secareanu) at two points in his timeline – one in which he’s an illegal immigrant in London, another in which he mans a checkpoint at a military border in a forest in, we’re led to assume, a war-torn former Eastern Bloc nation.

Alone in the forest, he’s oddly freer than he is as a homeless labourer in England, where he’s saved by the kindness of Staunton’s Sister Claire. She introduces Tomaz to Magda (Carla Juri), a carer for her own elderly mother, a little seen presence lurking somewhere in their decrepit East End manor. But what seems like yet another “what’s behind the locked door?” movie – a cheapo genre booming in popularity thanks to their agreeability with the stresses of a COVID-era film set – soon turns out to be much more.

While the historic timeline purple nurples our view of Tomaz as a man, the action inside the house takes a turn for the weird when Tomaz finds something pink, fleshy and alive blocking the toilet. Soon, we’re in the David Cronenberg zone, grotesque creatures and gut-churning body horror appearing in an otherwise mundane setting. But the tense relationship between the housemates – one of brooding silences, heartily consumed broth and the unsteadying effects of Magda’s completely unpredictable behaviour in any given circumstance – ensures things stay focused on the humanity of the situation even when the giant foetal bats show up.

By the time you’ve figured out what’s really going on, you’ll be questioning whose side you’re on and why. Amulet is a home run in ‘evolved horror’ terms, where the scariest thing is (gulp!) having your liberal sensibilities tested. Terrific stuff.