10/21/20 - Relic (2020) - 7/10
A horror film about family, aging, and the inevitable decline of those we love. It blends metaphor and malicious materiality into a creeping dread that carries regretability, palpability, and hereditary horror into each moment. Such a clever mixture of psychology and emotional resonance to boost its effect, letting the damning of inexorability tear down the walls separating fear from fortitude.
The womanly bonds of affection and acrimony between mother and daughter, generation and generation, are lucidly painted on the etched visage of each actress here. The canted camera haunts the voids between each peculiarity and perniciousness. The stories pace is precise, keeping up well with both the doling out of details and decay, expressed visually as well as verbally.;
The black mold was the tortured cursed spirit inhabiting the house and the family, a pain passed on - the chilling and mournful remnant of senile neglect. It’s a horrifying literal representation of the curse that comes for all at an age - losing oneself and becoming an unknown husk of what we were, the black innards left to rot by the family not there. None escape its touch, whether suffocating the mind or spoiling the loved ones hearts. We are all a burden as well as a boon at some point, but with Relic, it becomes almost a mythical malevolence that scars and scores. It is the dark passenger that dwells inside, waiting to annihilate the solidity of self and the symbiosis with the sired.
