Amulet
Magnet Releasing | Release Date (Streaming): July 24, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
12
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganJul 23, 2020
Amulet is deeply, deliberately mysterious, and all the more fun for it; the less viewers know going in, the more ferocious the ride. Read full review
83
The Film StageJared MobarakJul 23, 2020
Amulet in effect lulls us into a false sense of familiarity by positioning genre conventions and gender norms as an artificial façade waiting to be torn down. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubToussaint EganJul 22, 2020
Amulet elevates these themes of repentance and sin through deft editing, strong performances, and a chilling score. It’s an evocative, confident debut, recalling the metaphorical horror of Jennifer Kent’s "The Babadook" or Babak Anvari’s "Under The Shadow," even as it announces the arrival of a singular new voice. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 28, 2022
Amulet has been billed as a feminist revenge horror. It’s a savage one, powered along by the same metaphorical heft that made The Babadook such a sensation. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJul 23, 2020
It's all way freakier than it is frightening, but there's a distinctive taste for cruelty here that marks Garai as an audacious new horror auteur. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 24, 2020
At times, Amulet can feel a little too in love with style over story; immoderately hung up on gooey close-ups of gutted fish or Magda engaged in a sort of jerky, mesmerizing dance whose offbeat rhythms rival Elaine on Seinfeld. But even as it builds toward a more conventional climax — only the first, it turns out, of several twist endings — the movie casts a grim sort of spell; a brooding, stifled dread that creeps in quietly from the margins, and lingers long after the last triumphant frame. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJessica KiangJul 23, 2020
Amulet is a horror movie which baits-and-switches cleverly—and angrily—about who is the horror’s innocent victim, and who’s its guilty cause. And as a haunted house film, its ornate mythology pulls the dingy rotting rug out several times from under our initial idea of who is the haunter and who the hauntee. Read full review
70
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsJan 26, 2022
A wildly ambitious, idiosyncratic and very English domestic horror story baked in the mould of Clive Barker’s seminal S&M gore wig-out, Hellraiser, from 1987. Read full review
70
Film ThreatNorman GidneyJul 23, 2020
Horror movies usually aim to scare, entertain, and teach us. Amulet mostly does all three. Very nicely done. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangJul 23, 2020
It starts throwing details at you almost immediately, each one building on yet also undermining the last, as if it were deliberately trying to confound your sense of what kind of movie you’re watching. Read full review
67
IndieWireKate ErblandJul 23, 2020
It’s an impressive first feature, and while fans of zippy midnight movies might balk at its slow-burn opening act, the film eventually builds to some nutso body horror and a strong sense of mythology that announces Garai’s arrival as a filmmaker to watch, no matter the genre. Read full review
63
Slant MagazinePat BrownJul 20, 2020
The film never feels as satisfying or as haunting as its bow-tying epilogue strives for. Read full review
60
EmpireSophie ButcherJan 24, 2022
A loose, hurried ending can’t quite live up to the effective sense of dread created in the first two acts, but Amulet is still a fascinating, nightmarish debut from Garai. Read full review
60
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJan 18, 2022
With the faintest debt to The Exorcist and HR Giger, and a barnstorming turn from Imelda Staunton turn as a nun with some dark secrets of her own, Garai has found an arresting way to position male sexual violence: as an age-old curse that brings with it the bitterest of consequences. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearJul 24, 2020
The movie’s ambitions exceed its grasp, and it’s hard not to wonder if the ideas here might not have been better served in a shorter, tighter format. Read full review
60
VarietyDennis HarveyJul 23, 2020
She hasn’t just created a stylish potboiler, but a densely textured piece that makes for a truly arresting viewing experience to a point. A shame then that the film succumbs somewhat to the more pretentious and silly aspects of Garai’s initially cryptic puzzle of a script. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 23, 2020
This is Garai’s feature directing debut, and it is as satisfying as it is promising, despite an unfortunate wind down. She has a great eye — and a real feel for the power of silence and visual textures — but she stumbles when she explains too much. Read full review
59
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJul 23, 2020
Garai’s array of filmmaking techniques are impressive and haunting, breathing an unsettling melancholy into her script. Read full review
58
PolygonJesse HassengerAug 18, 2020
Amulet attempts to yoke together serious drama with over-the-top genre satisfaction. Instead, it winds up tying itself in unsatisfying knots. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 24, 2020
The resolutions to the mystery, the depictions of what we’ve only suspected, are gruesome, conventional and dull and generic. And that amulet? It’s an afterthought. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJul 24, 2020
It's like Garai can never work out whether she wants this to be a modern Gothic fantasy, or a contemporary horror with deeper social meaning, then falls afoul of excessive coincidence. The parts of the spell are all there, but the conjuring is incomplete. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyJul 24, 2020
Suffused with plenty of gross-out, phantasmagoric body horror but short on actual spine-tingling scares, the handsomely-produced Amulet asserts Garai more as a gifted genre stylist than a savvy storyteller. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 27, 2022
This chamber-horror oddity from the English actress-turned-auteur is too weird, too wonky; intermittently gross, and often gruelling. Read full review
40
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaJul 23, 2020
A painfully slow slog, this horror film from Romola Garai has plenty of good ideas and a few neat creature effects, but that’s not enough to salvage things. Read full review
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