‘Azrael’ evaluation: Samara Weaving, a silent gimmick, and many gore

What has A Quiet Place wrought? The alien-invasion horror hit that used silence to amp up rigidity in its rural setting was brilliantly executed. As a result of the film’s ravenous extraterrestrial creatures chase sound, the characters do not communicate aloud, and even their viewers feels the stress to not scream. A Quiet Place‘s success with critics and audiences not solely spurred a sequel (A Quiet Place Half II) and a prequel (A Quiet Place: Day One), but in addition opportunistic imitators, wanting to take the muted gimmick to make their unaffiliated motion pictures stand out. 

Final fall, author/director Brian Duffield hit Hulu with a strikingly related idea in No One Will Save You, wherein Kaitlyn Dever stars as a rustic lady suffering from invading aliens whereas she does not say a phrase. With Christmas got here John Woo’s deeply dismal motion dud Silent Evening, wherein Joel Kinnaman performs a vengeance-fueled anti-hero who, due to a scarring act of violence, is unable to vocalize — however for no obvious motive, nobody else talks round him both. Now comes Azrael, a horror collaboration from Low cost Thrills director E.L. Katz and You are Subsequent author Simon Barrett. Regardless of the noteworthy expertise connected, it too leans exhausting into this scream-free gimmick that may’t make up for its flimsy storytelling. 

What’s Azrael about?

Written by Barrett and helmed by Katz, Azrael stars Samara Weaving because the titular younger girl who is just not solely named after the Angel of Dying however can also be a part of a post-apocalyptic cult dwelling deep within the woods, below a vow of silence. Blood-red textual content splashes throughout the display to succinctly introduce the large rule of the cult: Do not communicate; or else evil will come. 

In a rugged village, the cultists worship the wind that rips by means of their drafty church bedecked with crucifixes. They impart with one another by means of stern glances and huffs of air. It appears a comparatively peaceable place, save for his or her ritual of human sacrifice. Silence or not, one thing must be fed to the vampire-like creatures that shamble by means of the woods looking for human blood.

Chosen by her group to be fed to the Nosferatu-looking ghouls, Azrael is sure to a chair, the place she is left like that poor goat in Jurassic Park — a meal to be loved tied up and alive. However this intelligent lady breaks her method free, not solely setting the ghouls upon her traitorous group but in addition looking them down so she would possibly reside. It is a story filled with graphic violence that is greatest described as gloppy, however the plot is achingly skinny: Survive. 

Azrael appears like a brief movie stretched past its limits. 

Barrett and Katz have histories with horror anthology franchises ABCs of Dying and V/H/S, which sew collectively a group of creepy shorts with some tenuous throughline or framing gadget. Azrael feels prefer it started as a brief pitch that wasn’t developed to its full potential earlier than being unleashed on the world. 

A part of the issue is that the plot line is thinner than Weaving’s well-groomed brows. Regardless of plopping in a boyfriend (Candyman‘s Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) for Azrael to attempt to rescue, a camp chief who has critical glower energy (Katariina Unt), and a hapless passerby bewildered by her predicament, there may be nothing substantial to this story. The lore round what occurred to the world, what the creatures within the woods are, or how the cult got here to be all are largely irrelevant. And admittedly, that is fantastic. These particulars do not matter to Azrael as she’s simply making an attempt to get by means of the night time, so that they need not matter to her viewers. However there’s one thing essential missing right here: character. 

As a result of Azrael has no dialogue, her actions turn out to be her major character definition. And that leaves us with little or no. She likes to kiss her boyfriend. She made him a bracelet from twigs. And he or she does not need to be eaten alive by forest vampires. It is relatable, however not a lot to get invested in. Azrael is a gesture towards a Ultimate Lady archetype — candy and resilient, however with no depth to make her come alive. 

Principally, Barrett and Katz take with no consideration the viewers would possibly need to perceive the heroine they observe by means of a grueling night time of mayhem and homicide. Or perhaps they thought casting Weaving would carry with it sufficient viewers goodwill to paper over the lazily scripted protagonist. In any case, style followers lapped up each depraved smile, snarky rejoinder, and curse-laden rant Weaving delivered in The Babysitter, Weapons Akimbo, and Prepared or Not. However Azrael is not like these motion pictures.

This silent premise rob viewers’s of Weaving’s sharp comedic timing and her simple attraction as a foul-mouthed badass. It isn’t a frolicking collision of playful plotlines and ultra-violence. It is a grim and grisly spiritual pilgrimage that is gleeful in gore but simply not enjoyable. 

The silent gimmick suffocates Azrael. 

In A Quiet Place, the household could not vocalize safely, however they did speak to one another by means of signal language. This gave the actors a method not solely to specific their character’s ideas, but in addition a grounded world from which to construct the supernatural scares. In Azrael, the cult theatrically scowls or smiles or sighs closely to get their factors throughout. The result’s a near-comical pantomime, studying as a crude reenactment of silent movie appearing. All of the performances right here depend on stricken faces, stern brows, or silent screaming. It is off-putting and goofy greater than impactful or horrifying. 

Maybe Katz was striving for an environment that felt removed from grounded within the acquainted, vibrating as an alternative with uncooked emotion, heady environment, and terror. However with no dialogue nor any outlined characters to cling to, plus an episodic construction nakedly designed to favor sloppy slays over story, this spiritual horror flick feels horrid however humdrum. There’s not sufficient for audiences to sink their enamel into. Whereas filled with blood and slicked with spiritual symbols, Azrael performs like an empty parlor trick — not even an inexpensive thrill. 

Azrael was reviewed out of SXSW 2024.