Azrael - Angel of Death

This is a well put together movie. The production, sound and lighting are all pretty strong. The acting, despite a word not being uttered, is good. Samara weaving was excellent as the determined and gritty lead. I'm keen to see her in action with actual lines.

The dialogue free story moves at a fair pace without ever truly grabbing you by the balls. It's occasionally gory/bloody and unnerving but is never jumpy or particularly frightening.

There are small breadcrumbs of clues smattered around about the post rapture apocalyptic world the movie is set in - but there's a lot left up to your own interpretation and many won't get past that.

I'm still most confused how such a fine looking truck decked out with all the mod cons pops up out of nowhere. Especially driven by a relatively normal guy (that actually speaks)!?

A better, more polished effort than many I've watched on shudder but no classic by any means.

And it leaves a lot up to the imagination. These things do the film no favors. Nothing is explained and that is fine. I guess. But it also keeps the viewer at arm's length. How I am supposed to care about the lead when she is just in one after another of the same situation. Yeah, we get it: she's scrappy.

It was also hard to stay abreast of who was who without names, dialog, etc. I can't even tell you if there was an "us" or a "them".

The movie just seemed there. And it tried to justify its there-ness with the mostly non-verbal contrivance at its core. But while the silence in A Quiet Place has its reasons, I just don't get it here.

In a world in which no one speaks, a devout female-led community hunts down a young woman who has escaped her imprisonment. Recaptured by its ruthless leaders, Azrael is due to be sacrificed to pacify an ancient evil deep within the surrounding wilderness - but she'll stop at nothing to ensure her own survival. Azrael makes a savage bid for freedom as her escape accelerates towards a vicious, revenge-fueled showdown.

And what a showdown it is. Being hunted through the forest, captured, escaped, recaptured, re-escaped, captured again, Azrael is one unlucky woman the way she is hunted and captured over and over. However she thinks she has found the key to survival toward the end, but everything turns to gore filled carnage. And not a single word of dialogue the entire film. So the meaning of it depends on the actors acting ability, and our perception. What does the end mean? Well, your guess is as good as Azrael's... The acting isn't great, but the mood and the story are fabulous. It's well executed and paced well despite there being no dialogue and long shots of actors just staring at each other or into the distance. I really enjoyed it and gave it a solid 6 for gore entertainment.

Would have made a great short which seems to be the case for alot of these features these days. This film is massively padded out with dross that needs editing out. Found my eyes closing at a couple of moments during the film which is never a good sign, same was said for A Violent Nature. There's a reason no one has told the slasher story like that before and it's because it's a snooze fest.

This looks great on paper and like I said would make a great short but there is nothing in this feature that was new or unique. Mute cults... um sure, Valhalla Rising did this masterfully. Also I did not buy it. These people have supposed to be mute for a very long time yet they exhibit no real form of other communication. It all felt staged. A world not earned or lived in.

I think my biggest gripe is that this film lacks so much clarity. It presents a bunch of questions and answers none.

Some nice gory bits in it but that's about it.

I would like to describe how frustrating it is to watch a film like this but ... there are no words.

It's some post appocalyptic scenario (maybe) and there are people in the woods who seem to (maybe) worship some force of evil, embodied by zombie-like demons that lurk in the woods.

People run around in the woods and there are some fights between the maybe good and maybe bad guys until eventually it draws to a somewhat unambiguous ending.

There are some awesome gore effects and the movie is expertly made but why they wanted to go the silent route is bizarre. It is tedious and you just don't care about any of the no-name characters and the things they don't say.

I'm sure some will rave about this movie but for me it did not work.