User reviews

This is definitely for those that like weird and artsy horror films, and good movie lovers. Depends on what you like. I'm an old school horror fan and it builded on me. Movie is shot very well and the 3 actors in it do a fine job....they play such odd characters. Music was great too....the intro music was creepy. So yes....it's slow and creepy....but thats what its going for. Its not an action packed Marvel film. I have no clue why the low reviews say its bad, worst film, or boring, etc. I don't think they love movies, lol. There are hundreds of worse movies out there, maybe they don't watch much. To me, if its shot great, has good acting, keeps me interested, has me going what the hell at times and trying to figure it out, has good music, is creepy and arty, and has me looking up more about it after I watched it, then thats a good movie. It did its job. I give it a 6 or 7. The intro and outro credits even look cool, lol. Very cool new and different movie.

The movie tries a little too hard to be smart and artsy, and it ends up plodding along at a slow pace at some points. This isn't your standard horror fare, which is a nice change of pace. The cinematography painted the world as a dark, bleak place. But I ended up not caring for any of the characters, and the director somehow made the horrific elements boring as very little happens even after the horror is revealed. The ending, for me, was confusing although a repeat viewing (which is unlikely to happen) may clarify things.

This isn't for your standard moviegoer, but for those who like the more artsy films, this may be for you. Just go in knowing this is quite the slow-burn.

The title says it all. The acting was good, I think the story could have been more interesting, but the low-energy, life-support pace of this movie had me half asleep by the end.

I appreciate some art-house, slow-burn movies, but this one fell short.

[4/10]

Extremely slow getting anywhere. Once it does get where it is going, you wish it hadn't. A boring journey. Nonsense made up ideology that goes unexplained completely. Terrible story telling (Direction and writing). Pass on this. You can't say you were not warned.

Not quite what you might perceive, as this story doth deceive, not a demon vigilante but a trickster who's men anti.

Crawling along at a snail's pace, voids not even the greatest leaps of faith could overcome, but there is an audience for this kind of batty nonsense I'm sure, though they probably have an axe to grind.

While there are only one or two actual scares in this film, it does a great job of building an increasing atmosphere of dread. There are also some pretty grotesque scenes.

Storywise, this concerns a PTSD-afflicted soldier who had been part of some overseas conflict (apparently Eastern European) and is now in London living with other refugees. After their accommodation gets burned down, a nun finds him free housing with a young woman (also apparently Eastern European) on the condition that he helps repair her dilapidated house. However, from the outset not all seems right. The young girl's mother (unseen) is apparently dying, in pain, in the upstairs room. But why all the secrecy about her? And what is the strange runic symbol that he finds in the ceiling. What is the meaning of the night-time flashbacks that he has to his time as a soldier?

Although I'm not sure that the story entirely holds up in terms of logic, it nonetheless kept me spellbound for the duration.

I must say, some of the comments left here by others are baffling to me. Reading not too far between the lines of some of them, it seems that some people don't seem to appreciate a horror story told from the perspective of a female writer and director, or that the lead characters are not English. Well, so much the worse for those viewers. As for being slow - if this hour-and-a-half of effective horror is a strain on your patience, then I wouldn't bother going to see pretty much anything else that is out right now, many of which stretch their stories over two-and-a-half to three hours (Memoria, anyone?).

I love Hereditary and Midsommar and Lighthouse, but this is clearly not on same level. It has very bad rhythm, storytelling is way off, cast is completely uninvolving and their accents annoying. Music and sound were great, ending was somewhat rewarding, but it's done completely anticlimactically, and first hour or so were a true bore. Even if you are horror fan, you can safely skip this, unless you are completitionist.

If you are looking for a gore feast or have the attention span of a flea this movie is not for you.

With suburb acting, story, and production this movies is engaging from start to finish.

This film does require you to actually watch it to get the most out of the subtleties through out that give you a sense of the characters conflicts and personalities.

All in all a superb film

Guys...stop. Having a bunch of well-shot footage of forests and obnoxious experimental music doesn't make something a high quality horror film on par with things like Hereditary and The Lighthouse. If that surface level stuff is all you think it takes to make a movie intelligent and masterfully crafted, sorry, but you're not as clever as you're trying to make yourselves sound.

There are many things that directors like Aster and Eggers do that make their movies rise far above ones like this, but let me just pick one, and arguably the most important one, THE PERFORMANCES OF THE CHARACTERS. You have to be absolutely kidding me if you're going to sit there trying to tell me that the actors in Amulet were anywhere close to well-directed, maximum effort performances from people like Willem Dafoe and Toni Collette. They aren't just on different floors, they're not even in the same building.

I've seen much, much worse than Amulet, and I wouldn't even go as far as to call it a bad film, but I can't think of a single moment where Tomas or Magda made me think "wow, what a great performance". Hell, I can't even think of one that made me care about either of them. They're dreary characters in a dreary setting acting out dreary motions to fill up time until the entire effects budget is blown in the last 10 minutes, and yes, the director is obviously TRYING to convey something poignant with this unconventional story, but they just aren't selling it.

"Weird + good cinematography" does not automatically equal a great film.

"Having an artistic vision + good intentions" does not automatically equal a great film.

It's a great effort, but it's not a great film. Wait five years to see if anyone's still talking about it, or even remembers that it existed, if you're still unsure about that.

Extremely unengaging. The plot seems to have no thrust to it. You're just watching at best passable actors wander about, occasionally witnessing generic horror tropes.

I'd guess that's a side effect of stretching a 20 minute idea to a 100 minutes but I'm honestly not sure what the 20 minute idea is. I finished the movie, I understand all the events that took place, and I'm still left with a feeling that I didn't get something. It's like they chose to tell a fairly basic story in the most convoluted way possible. I have so many questions about the motivations and inconsistencies of characters and actions.

At one point a plot twist happens. There are flashbacks to previous events and all that jazz. I admit to being confused, but only because I don't understand why that's a plot twist. It could have been presented as it really is and would have changed absolutely nothing. In fact it would make more sense that way!

Imelda Staunton is great in her very short role and for the 3 minutes that the movie goes completely bananas it is entertaining, but for every good thing in this movie there is a scene that makes you laugh unintentionally for either coming out of nowhere or being done poorly. It's not so bad it's good, it's not entertaining.

This movie deserves a much higher score but I think it is a movie that people have trouble enjoying for at least 3 reasons.

Firstly, it takes time and focus to actually follow the plot. It's not spoon feeding you. You have to pay attention and remember events and comments from earlier in the movie. It all ties together beautifully at the end but you have to be able to see it.

Second, it takes a huge twist close to the end. If you don't get the plot, you won't like or understand the twist. I like this movie because it's one of those WTF movies that really leaves you thinking about it long after the movie. These are my favorite type of movies so I get why not everyone likes that.

Third, I love horror. This is one of the freakiest horror films I have ever seen and I have seen hundreds. This is up there with Event Horizon in terms of spooky/revolting and unsettling horror. But it only comes in small bits. Most of the movie is psychological but here and there it has really great horror moments. Both "shock/surprised" horror and also that sort of OMG realization horror where you realize how horrific something is slowly and your eyes go wide.

I hope more of you can watch this and enjoy it as much as I did.

This movie had all the elements to hold attention and fulfill its mission. And to some extent it holds, so much that I went to the end. I don't even know why. Perhaps out of curiosity or because I had some hope of improvement. But unfortunately for some reason it never takes off. It's not entirely bad, but it's never good. It's too slow. No scares. Only a few disgusting scenes, some unnecessary. It bets a lot on the cast, but this one is lazy, with the exception of the dedicated Alec Secareanu. So, this way the film doesn't progress. The script itself is unsustainable. Superficially there is an interesting idea, but poorly executed. Watch at your own risk, but only super fans of the genre will give it high rates.

This is not a horror movie. Its a boring movie. Nothing happens, and its very confusing to watch. The fact that it is so confusing and so boring, just takes out the enjoyment of watching this crap. Dont waste your time with this. Its a complete waste of time.

I had heard great things about this film and last night settled down to watch it. What a disaster, I don't know what it is with horror film directors but why do they have to make their films 'arty.' What has happened to a straight scary horror movie? This could have been such a good film if it was done as a scary film and not like some student trying to impress their tutor. All in all it wasn't scary at all, the a ting was good but just good, there was a good story with it but that was it. Just over an hour and a half of my life I won't get back. Don't believe the hype, if you are going to watch it keep an open mind and don't read any reviews first.

I must admit that I had hoped for a bit more than what writer and director Romola Garai managed to deliver with this 2020 horror movie titled "Amulet". Seems that proper horror movies are starting to be a rare occurrence these days.

It was the abysmal storyline that made this movie into a stinking pile of... well, you get my drift here. The storyline was just so unfathomably slow paced, and with virtually nothing of anything of noteworthy interest happening, it just felt extraordinarily prolonged. And it felt more like it was a sentence to sit down and watch "Amulet" than it was a movie for entertainment.

I will say that the acting in the movie was adequate, especially taking into consideration that writer Romola Garai had virtually given the actors and actresses nothing to work with. Nothing. And the movie had a relatively small cast ensemble, so they had to up their game and really deliver to carry the movie. This failed to be the case, because they just didn't have the material to work with.

For a horror movie, then "Amulet" was just dreadfully mundane and boring. There was nothing scary in the movie at all. Not even a single, cheaply and easily acquired jump scare. Yeah, so go figure...

I will say that the prosthetics were good, and I did like the design of the bat. And the whole birthing thing was actually interesting enough. But these could just do nothing to salvage the train wreck that is "Amulet".

My rating of "Amulet" is a generous three out of ten stars, mostly because there was a good production value to the movie. I managed to suffer through the entire course of the movie, so you don't have to. And as for the ending of the movie, well while it was just so obvious and you saw it coming a mile away, something could be said for that being a classic way of ending a horror movie.

"Amulet" really isn't worth the time, money or effort, and there are far better choices in the horror genre.

Overall good. But took a lot of patience to get through the end. Great soundtrack. Script was ok. Acting was excellent. Great soundtrack too.

Total dross, boredom levels were only kept at bay by the annoying and utterly terrible soundtrack, sounded like Nordic medieval women chanting for a husband! firstly, IT IS NOT HORROR, its like a bad episode of "inside no9" oh and the film, had no start , middle, or end. acting was cardboard , script was that of an art school pretentious kid! oh its awful, honestly do not waste your time, or at least if you do watch it - give it a rating to show what it is really like , instead of the people trying to be melvyn brag!! IMdB needs a "0" option to rate this kind of drivel!!!!

An abstract horror mostly. Little more context relating the two story lines would be good but it's visually stunning and gets more messed up right to the end. Some of the imagery will be stuck in my head for a while and it's been a long time since a film has done that. Disturbing stuff.

The acting is fine but the film in general is unadulterated tosh.