When Kay (Emily Mortimer) gets a call to say that her mother has not been seen in days she drives to her home with her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote). They arrive to a cluttered but empty home. After days searching Edina (Robyn Nevin) appears without recollection of where she was. 

Ever since Jennifer Kent’s brilliant exploration of grief in The Babadook, horror films have been going to new heights in their exploration of human emotions and experiences. Relic is one such film which is a brilliant exploration of dementia and the impact it has on a family. Co-written and directed by Natalie Erika James Relic is a film to seek out and discover. 

The film opens with a memory of last Christmas when Edina accidentally flooded her home by leaving the bath running. The water damage it created has turned to decay and mould on the walls and ceiling and is the start of the representation of Edina’s home as her mind. The house is cluttered with items from her life, but they are scattered and unordered. Sticky notes are placed around the home to try to jog her memories to do things like turn off the tap and take her pills. As the film goes on we will find the house becomes more cavernous, the decay spreads and the notes appear more frequently. 

Whilst there is nothing scarier than a creepy old house in the woods the film also needs an emotional centre and it gets this in three brilliant performances of three generations of a family. Robyn Nevin manages to inspire fear and sympathy in equal measure whilst Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote show grief, anger and fear at the loss of their mother and grandmother. 

The film expertly captures the loss of someone whilst they are still there and the underlying fear of a condition that can be hereditary. It is an exceptional debut feature from Natalie Erika James and marks her as someone to watch.