what happened quiet place made? The hit alien invasion horror film, which uses silence in a rural setting to heighten the tension, was brilliantly executed. The film's ravenous extraterrestrials follow sounds, so the characters and even the audience feel pressured not to make a sound. quiet placeIts success with critics and audiences not only spurred the production of a sequel (A Quiet Place Part II) and the first part (A Quiet Place: Day 1), but also opportunistic imitators who eagerly exploit obscure gimmicks to make their unrelated films stand out.
Last fall, writer/director Brian Duffield hit Hulu with a surprisingly similar concept. no one will save you In this film, Kaitlyn Deaver plays a country girl who is beset by alien invaders who silently invade her home.John Woo's extremely gruesome action movie begins with Christmas. quiet night, The film stars Joel Kinnaman as a vengeful antihero who is unable to make a sound due to the scars of his violent actions, and no one around him speaks for no apparent reason. .now comes Azrael Horror collaboration from cheap thrills With director Elle Katz you are next Author Simon Barrett. Although he has remarkable talent, This film also leans heavily into this no-scream gimmick that doesn't make up for its flimsy storytelling.
what? Azrael about?
Barrett wrote the script, Katz will direct. Azrael Samara Weaving plays the titular young woman, who is not only named after the Angel of Death, but also part of an apocalyptic cult that lives deep in the woods under a vow of silence. Blood-red text splatters across the screen, briefly introducing the cult's big rules. „Do not speak.“ Otherwise evil will come.
in a rugged village, Cultists worship the wind that blows through the drafty church decorated with crosses. They communicate with each other through stern stares and huffing airs. Other than their human sacrifice rituals, it seems to be a relatively peaceful place. Silence or not, something needs to be given to the vampire-like creatures that roam the forests in search of human blood.
Chosen by her community, Ghoul like NosferatuAzrael is tied to a chair and left there like that poor goat. Jurassic Park — A meal enjoyed while tied up and alive. But this clever girl breaks through her own path and not only plants ghouls on her traitorous community, she hunts them down for her own survival. It's a story full of graphic violence, best described as gloppy, but the plot is painfully thin: Survive.
Azrael It feels like a short film that pushes boundaries.
Barrett and Katz have a history of working on horror anthology franchises. ABCs of death and V/H/S, A collection of spooky shorts sewn together Use weak through-lines or framing devices. Azrael It feels like it started out as a short pitch that never reached its full potential before being unleashed on the world.
Part of the problem is that the plot lines are thinner than Weaving's well-groomed eyebrows. Even though I have a boyfriend (candymanThe story includes a character trying to rescue Azrael (Nathan Stewart Jarrett), a camp leader with serious glower powers (Katharina Wundt), and a hapless passerby who is perplexed by her plight. There is nothing. The lore of what happened to the world, what the creatures of the forest are, how the cult came about, etc. is largely irrelevant. And frankly, that's fine. Those details don't matter to the viewer because Azrael is just trying to get through the night. But there's something crucially missing here: personality.
Azrael has no dialogue, so her actions are the main character definition. And that leaves us with very little. She likes kissing her boyfriend. She made him a bracelet out of twigs. And she doesn't want to be eaten alive by forest vampires. It's something I can relate to, but it's not something I'd really invest in. Azrael is a gesture toward the Final Girl archetype, sweet and resilient, but without the depth that makes her come alive.
Essentially, Barrett and Katz take for granted that audiences might want to understand the heroine they follow through a grueling night of mayhem and murder.Or maybe they were thinking of casting Weaving. That would involve enough audience goodwill to ignore the lazy scripted protagonist. After all, fans of the genre piled on all the evil smiles, mean retorts, and curse-filled rants Weaving delivered. Babysitter Guns Akimboand Are you ready or not?. but Azrael It's different from these movies.
This silent premise robs audiences of Weaving's sharp comedic timing and her undeniable charm as a foul-mouthed bad guy. It's not a frolicsome collision of playful plotlines and ultra-violence. It's a gruesome, gruesome religious pilgrimage whose gore presentation is fun but never fun.
Silent gimmick stifles Azrael.
in quiet place, Although the family could not safely speak out loud, they communicated with each other using sign language. This gave the actors a way to not only express the characters' thoughts, but also a grounded world to build supernatural horrors around.in Azrael, cults use theatrical grimaces, smiles, or deep sighs to get their point across. The result is an almost comical pantomime that reads as a crude recreation of silent film acting. Every performance here relies on a defeated face, a stern eyebrow, or a silent cry. Rather than being impactful or scary, it's more unpleasant and goofy.
Perhaps Katz was aiming for raw emotion, a heady atmosphere, and an atmosphere vibrating with fear, far from rooted in the familiar. But with no dialogue or clear characters to cling to, and an episodic structure blatantly designed to favor sloppy killing over story, this religious horror film feels horrifyingly boring. Not enough to keep the audience hooked. Although covered in blood and plastered with religious symbols, Azrael It's more like an empty parlor trick, and it's not a cheap thrill either.
Azrael Reviewed from SXSW 2024.