Posts
A horror film you (hopefully) won't forget
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Relic, conducted last week, click here.
This is an effective slow-burn frightener that takes its time narratively. James and crew impressively build a creeping, palpable sense of dread and despair by craftily conjuring disturbing imagery and ratcheting up the tension between these three female family members, who, we quickly learn, are increasingly emotionally estranged from one another.
While the horrific events inside the house could be taken literally if you so choose, it eventually dawns on the rest of us that this is not a supernatural phenomenon but an allegorical externalization of Edna’s decaying mind. The three-headed monster here is dementia itself, the specter of impending death, and the sickening realization by Kay and Sam that (SPOILERS AHEAD) they will likely suffer the same fate eventually. And this is actually a more bone-chilling reading than assigning any semblance of realism to the surreal scenes that unfold in the last third of the movie.
The difficulty for some viewers, however, is that it’s natural to bring genre expectations to a film like this and perhaps be disappointed to learn that what they are seeing is ultimately a metaphorical manifestation; we’ve watched enough haunted house and demonic possession pictures that we expect a realistic explanation for what is plaguing Edna and threatening her offspring.
Repeated visual motifs, like black mold that insidiously spreads across Edna’s home and claustrophobically tight interiors that disorient characters and viewers alike, are masterfully employed. The optics of dark rot and decaying corpses that haunt Kay’s dreams, along with the visceral body horror that dominates the final shots – wherein we see Kay peel away her mother’s decomposed epidermis to reveal the inner blackened husk of a decrepit figure in physical anguish, and the three women lying side-by-side on the bed, forming a doomed multigenerational chain – constitute incredibly potent imagery that lingers uncomfortably in our imaginations long after the end credits roll.
Relic unnervingly explores intergenerational familial dynamics and dysfunction, examining the relationship between three generations of women in the same family – a grandmother, her adult daughter, and her granddaughter – and how their familial ties are challenged when the eldest of them suffers from extreme dementia. It’s also a disturbing treatise on unavoidable hereditary inheritance and dark lineage. The film effectively terrifies by demonstrating the unavoidable link between the women, who are bound together by love but also by Edna’s increasingly debilitating and dangerous affliction, which may be passed on genetically. This family tree apparently is cursed by a legacy of rotten roots, as evidenced by the fact that Edna’s grandfather also succumbed to a similar “rot from within” terminal fate.
The heavy burden of caring for a sick older loved one has profound thematic resonance here, too. Kay and Sam strive to help and safeguard Edna, but are continually frustrated by her memory lapses, disappearances, and erratic, sometimes violent, behavior. Strong emotions of guilt, resentment, fear, anger, and exasperation inevitably surface. The last act of the movie – with sequences that are meant to be a symbolic representation of Edna’s complete mental disintegration, not to be taken literally as paranormal events – puts them through the wringer physically, psychologically, and emotionally.
Read more...
Repeated visual motifs, like black mold that insidiously spreads across Edna’s home and claustrophobically tight interiors that disorient characters and viewers alike, are masterfully employed. The optics of dark rot and decaying corpses that haunt Kay’s dreams, along with the visceral body horror that dominates the final shots – wherein we see Kay peel away her mother’s decomposed epidermis to reveal the inner blackened husk of a decrepit figure in physical anguish, and the three women lying side-by-side on the bed, forming a doomed multigenerational chain – constitute incredibly potent imagery that lingers uncomfortably in our imaginations long after the end credits roll.
Relic unnervingly explores intergenerational familial dynamics and dysfunction, examining the relationship between three generations of women in the same family – a grandmother, her adult daughter, and her granddaughter – and how their familial ties are challenged when the eldest of them suffers from extreme dementia. It’s also a disturbing treatise on unavoidable hereditary inheritance and dark lineage. The film effectively terrifies by demonstrating the unavoidable link between the women, who are bound together by love but also by Edna’s increasingly debilitating and dangerous affliction, which may be passed on genetically. This family tree apparently is cursed by a legacy of rotten roots, as evidenced by the fact that Edna’s grandfather also succumbed to a similar “rot from within” terminal fate.
The heavy burden of caring for a sick older loved one has profound thematic resonance here, too. Kay and Sam strive to help and safeguard Edna, but are continually frustrated by her memory lapses, disappearances, and erratic, sometimes violent, behavior. Strong emotions of guilt, resentment, fear, anger, and exasperation inevitably surface. The last act of the movie – with sequences that are meant to be a symbolic representation of Edna’s complete mental disintegration, not to be taken literally as paranormal events – puts them through the wringer physically, psychologically, and emotionally.
Similar works
- Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
- Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)
- Dark Water (2002)
- Harold’s Going Stiff (2011)
- The Babadook (2014)
- Dementia (2014)
- Late Phases (2014)
- The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
- Hereditary (2018)
- Sator (2019)
- Sanzan (2020)
- X (2022)
Other films by Natalie Erika James
- Apartment 7A (2024)
- Saccharine (2026)
