Relic is an Australian horror film directed by Natalie Erika James. The plot sees a mother and daughter go and stay with their elderly relative after she goes missing for a few days, things quickly start to take a turn for the sinister and things are shown to be much more than they first appeared.
The first hour and twenty minutes of this film are great, they are tense, scary and ominous. The film brings you into this world and much like The Taking Of Deborah Logan you’re questioning whether what you see is the result of mental illness or something more. Then in the last few minutes the characters make a decision, said decision feels out of place, incredibly so.
Basically, the characters decide to stay, which in the circumstance would be the last thing they would do. The explanation we are given as to why they do this is some vague throw away reference from the start of the film. This one line in the beginning does not set this up, it feels forgotten about by this time in the film, if it was so important they could have at least said it again later on.
That said the first hour and twenty minutes do feel scary and if they alone were what I was judging I would give it a perfect score; however they are not, and the ending does ruin the film overall.
Ultimately, this could have been a great horror film if it was not for the ending that doesn’t work.
Pros.
The performances
The scares
You don’t know what is real
The tension
Cons.
The awful ending
3.5/5
Another Millennial Reviewer 