VVirak

For the first 50 minutes, I kept wondering, "Why this movie doesn't have a higher IMDb rating?" And then came the last 30, where the authors just didn't know what to do with it, reached for some clichés and head-scratchers and ultimately ruined what should have been a memorable and original horror film (and what a missed opportunity this is - there was so much to like (the art direction, the atmosphere), so many directions to go... I can't believe they did this to their own movie. It feels like sabotage.)

Another quality entry from a 21st century Australian filmmaker, it's a film which horror I don't think most young people can experience or recognize properly, because it gets real with age, and, as you grow older, it creeps into you as some sort of inheritance, a legacy where you find yourself thinking of dying not in those romantic terms where you'd decide your own fate, but in terms of personal diminishing and gradual demise as, next in line for it, you slowly but surely creep towards your own death. "Relic" is drama-first, horror-second, yet that doesn't spoil its genre effectiveness. The three women portraying the three generations within the same family are all great and, even more importantly - relatable. With so many movies right now having these perplexingly high metascore marks, "Relic" is the one where I actually think its rating is highly unfair. My bet is it'll age gracefully.

Don't go into "La Llorona" for the horror of it, because you'll be disappointed -- horror is a by-product of any war atrocity, real or staged, and even though there are supernatural elements here that the title suggests, thus (also) rendering it a genre movie, these elements, they serve a different purpose. Frankly, I think it also being somewhat of a horror hurt its IMDb rating, because the wrong audience targets it and leaves it feeling misled. It's a good film on an important subject and you should see it.