A helping hand can hide something sinister in “Amulet”

Most of us might not recognize the name of Romola Garai, but we might see her face familiar. After all, she has been nominated twice for the Golden Globes as Best Performance by an Actress on television shows, first for The Hour (2011) and one year later for Emma (2009). She has also been nominated several times for other prestigious awards like BAFTA Awards, Australian Film Institute, British Independent Film Awards, Gold Derby Awards, and several other nominations and winnings for her acting performances. But she is not only accomplished in front of the camera since she debuted as the writer and director of a short film, Scrubber (2012), which was has been an awards-winner at London Short Film Festival in 2013 and nominated as Best Short at Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2012, and Sundance Film Festival in 2013. Now, she is releasing her feature film debut entitled Amulet (2020).

Written and directed by Romola Garai, Amulet (2020) tells the story of an ex-soldier, living homeless in London, who is offered a place to stay at a decaying house inhabited by a young woman and her dying mother. As he starts to fall for her, he cannot ignore his suspicion that something sinister is going on, he begins to suspect she is enslaved to a demon and resolves to fight the creature and rescue the woman he loves. It is starred by Imelda Staunton, Carla Juri, Alec Secareanu, Angeliki Papoulia, and Paul O’Kelly.

Amulet (2020) began production in Autumn 2018. In an interview with Variety, Matthew James Wilkinson, producer of the film, stated that the movie is a “feminist horror” and that Romola Garai, as a female filmmaker, “definitely wanted to take a look at what is happening in terms of recent gender politics and stand it on its head“.

The movie had its premiere on 26 January 2020 at Sundance Film Festival, where it got a positive reception. It is also scheduled to be part of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea on the 14th of July this year. It is rated R for some strong violence, bloody images, a sexual assault, and brief language and nudity. The official release date as Video on Demand is July 24, 2020. Here you can watch the official trailer for Amulet (2020).