Amelia's Children

While filmed well enough and looking at least somewhat polished, there is one element that make Amelia's Children more unintentionally laughable than scary.... While there is great cinematography and some great effects, the main antagonist has this laughably gross look that detracts more than it gives, especially during some of the more significant scenes. The bits of blood are at least done well enough and there is some polish to how scenes look. Night scenes almost have that sense of terror, with some selectively great suspense-building shots and just enough lighting to see what's going on, except again the laughably comical looking antagonist.

Acting is more miss than hit. Performances across the board were wooden, with only a few moments of true acting range during heightened tensions. I wish there was more to say here..... The story is, likewise, barebones and all-too-familiar. Once the bits of backstory come about, you've already guessed most of it and the rest is far too easy to predict..... The soundtrack is a bit too repetitive as well, with far too many similar sounding compositions popping up. Sound effects are only around for specific bits and don't add anything to the scene either.

If you really, really, want to watch a movie with a laughably bad looking antagonist, then I guess Amelia's Children would be the one to watch. Otherwise there isn't much going for it, aside from some great visuals.

After the crazy "Diamantino," Gabriel Abrantes opted for a conventional horror film. Kind of. As a horror fan, I can only thank him. And for a first work... it's not bad at all to start with one of the best works of the genre in the Portuguese language.

In the story, in New York, Edward (Carloto Cotta) lives peacefully with his girlfriend, Ryley (Bridgette Lindy-Paine). In search of his biological family, Edward ends up discovering he has a brother and a mother in Portugal, but soon realizes that uncovering his origins can be quite dangerous.

There's some excellent work here in introducing the plot and creating mystery. The film begins with a strong opening scene in the past (with Alba Baptista as the young mother) and then transitions to the present, initially presenting us with the main couple in a comprehensive yet not overly expository manner. These are the two best-developed, most well-rounded characters, greatly aided by the excellent performances of Carloto Cotta (who plays two very distinct roles) and Bridgette Lindy-Paine. Lindy-Paine, in particular, carries the film more than expected, always being the character who pieces together the plot. Anabela Moreira's outstanding work should also be highlighted; even covered in makeup, she manages to shine in the role of the most enigmatic character, the mother of the brothers.

The way Abrantes handles the genre is quite interesting, adding some dashes of humour (although some of the audience seemed to think it was purely a comedy) and blending in elements of traditional Portuguese folklore, as well as incorporating social commentary related to family and romantic relationships with a good dose of madness.

The soundtrack is excellent, as is all the work on the sound effects heightening the tension of the movie. From a visual perspective, the outstanding production design stands out (the interior spaces look like works of art), and the cinematography, especially in the darker scenes, is noteworthy. At times, the film leans into some genre clichés-several characters following voices in the dark, dreams within dreams, and more dreams-but it manages to rise above them by always keeping us entertained and engaged, concluding with a very strong third act.

In Portugal we trust!

For fans of European psychological horror films, this film is fresh meat.

The atmosphere of the film is really uncomfortable, and we are sucked in by the mystery of the plot, which remains easily fixed until the end.

Alba Baptista had little screen time, but listen to me, this woman deserves more roles in horror films.

It succeeds in delivering deeply unsettling imagery and ideas, and effectively utilizes its runtime well despite the film's very slow pace.

While the film does feel very slow at times, I can respect the fact that its attempts to tell a very complex and disturbing story, which it manages to accomplish with great precision.

As a Portuguese, I was afraid the film wouldn't be what I expected, but this is what we needed and what our COUNTRY needs.

For some reason, I was really excited to see this, even though I had no idea what the movie was about going into it. We follow Edward, who is searching for his biological family in Portugal. Along with him is his girlfriend, Riley, and soon they arrive at Edward's long-lost mother Amelia's villa. While Edward seems to adjust to his new family, Riley starts noticing questionable things and begins digging deeper into Amelia's history.

The movie has a rather simple setup, and it chooses to stick to that path. There are no real surprises, as it's clear early on that either something is wrong with Amelia, or Riley is worrying for no reason at all. The narrative just drags on, and while the production value looks solid and the movie looks fine in a technical sense, it's simply dull. If you're a seasoned horror fan, you've likely seen movies like this a hundred times. This one doesn't do much to stand out in the pile of average horror films, which is disappointing because I was expecting more.

There's not much else to say, except that the result turned out average at best. While it's not a complete disaster, you could easily skip this one. [4.8/10]

Well to put it lightly this movie definitely isn't anywhere near as good as I was hoping it was going to be, and honestly just a whole lot freakier than I ever expected as well.. which probably could work for other people but the mixture of coming out of practically nowhere and also having very little of it in general, I was disappointed on pretty much every front here for what the movie was attempting to do. It wasn't scary enough to warrant anything more than mediocre remarks on that side, wasn't well acted enough either to make the slog of following these characters the least bit enjoyable in my opinion, and it also just wasn't nearly as freaky as it should've been to even make that aspect of it enjoyable.. it was somehow far too tame and boring despite having some really insane moments and one wild storyline... and that is the biggest disappointment of all here. Although; if I was to give this movie one singular positive note, it would be that I do really like what they were TRYING to do here, director Gabriel Abrantes clearly had a vision and I applaud him going for it and I presume trying his best.. and despite their execution falling incredibly flat in my eyes I can still give them their props for at the very least attempting to do something new and interesting in the horror genre. I feel like this movie wasn't at all marketed like what it turned out to be, from the one trailer for it that I saw it really did seem to be a possession type story but ended up instead being based upon a Portuguese fairy tale that gets unbelievably freaky with the way it is depicted, and that's both a good and a bad thing here. The good is that the premise is at the heart of it all very compelling, while the bad is that like I mentioned not too long ago... it's not executed all that well in the end. Another thing that this movie did slightly better than the rest, although definitely not something that I feel very confident giving the role of a 'positive', is the acting. For the most part I would say that this movies acting is pretty much serviceable and not horrendous at any notable point in time, however it's still not the best and there are many many moments here where I could easily tell that either the script or the actors themselves weren't the greatest and it certainly dragged the quality of the movie itself down quite a bit for me. Obviously the most notable person in the entire cast here is our main lead, who is played pretty wonderfully by Brigette Lundy-Paine who I have seen prior to this film but for some reason just instagram, great acting from them and I thoroughly enjoyed the performance even if it wasn't outstanding or anything. The next actress here who I utterly adored, was of course the titular Amelia played by Alba Baptista who is phenomenal in the role and easily the best actor present here, also the makeup goes insane and I loved it.. which is another reason why she has the best role - creepy as all hell both in mannerisms and also just visuals which is a great pair. Finally, Carloto Cotta was okay in his dual roles, impressive I'll give him that but it was for sure the weakest performance in the whole thing sadly. Now it's time to talk about what I can easily consider to be the worst part of this movie which I somewhat touched on earlier, and that's the fact that it's just so unbelievably boring to watch and I really wish I could say otherwise but the process of watching this movie is genuinely somewhat painful due to just how little of actual intrigue happens throughout the first hour and fifteen minutes of it; albeit there are moments here and there that kind of lean more toward being good like the actual 'horror' elements of the film and the aforementioned makeup, but again the biggest problem with these things is that even though I do like them.. they either aren't on screen nearly enough in this thing, or are entirely useless to the story. The actual tense moments of this film almost entirely happen within dream sequences of visions of things that never actually happen, and to top it off we can barely even get to see anything occurring even within these moments.. which is truly just disappointing to me, especially when the structure of this film should have been an easy home run to make something at the very least stupidly entertaining. Though; they do the one thing here that has killed more horror movies as of late than anything else I have witnessed, and that is being utterly boring and sluggish to watch.. despite only being just around ninety minutes this movie sometimes feels like it goes on for an eternity, and that wouldn't be such a bad thing if the stuff within it was at all engaging or even scary to watch... sadly it's not. I really had high hopes for this movie to be something great but like I should seriously come to expect by now, especially from horror movies, it didn't reach those expectations in the slightest... if I'm being entirely honest here both the trailer and the poster for this movie are far far better than the actual movie itself which is depressing to say. Although; despite not really liking this movie really all that much and just viewing it as a fairly watchable and overall adequate project, I do still think there are some phenomenal things to take away from a movie such as this; obviously the actors for one clearly have the ability to do much better and I would wholeheartedly like to see them in more things to fully appreciate their talents, also the premise here itself is very interesting and has clear potential to be something outstanding but with the direction and writing here it just didn't get to fulfill that vision so I do hope someone else can take a jab at something similar and hopefully do a better job in the end. All in all, while I don't hate this movie by any means, I just don't really think it's worth spending over an hour of your life on unless you are in desperate need of a horror film (this honestly leads much more into psychological thriller), like freaky premises which this most definitely has, or are unbelievably bored. If you're not falling under those categories, don't watch this, I don't recommend it.