The actress Romola Garai’s directorial debut is a “moody, brooding” horror film that inches from “slow-boil creaks to rapturous, hallucinogenic madness”, while delivering a few good jump scares along the way, said Mark Kermode in The Observer; “an encounter with something horrible in the bathroom gave me a genuine start”. The Romanian actor Alec Secareanu stars as Tomaz, a veteran “from an unnamed, conflict-torn country”, now making ends meet in squalid London. When he meets a “sinisterly smiling nun”, Sister Claire (Imelda Staunton), she offers him refuge in a dilapidated suburban house, where he can live as long as he helps to repair the building. He accepts, and ends up enclosed in the house with Magda (Carla Juri), a fellow resident who’s taking care of her disabled mother. Gradually, the house becomes “a character with its own distinctive pulse”, whose “mouldy walls mirror a creeping moral malaise within”.
The first hour of Amulet is admirably chilling, said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday. But “as the bumps in the attic grow progressively more alarming”, Garai gets into a “terrible tangle” with an overcomplicated plot “involving demons, deities and eternal damnation”. I found this “chamber-horror oddity” weird and wonky, agreed Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. Amulet could have brought a “bracingly ambitious” feminist twist to the genre. Yet the pacing is “askew” and the dialogue stilted – and the “berserk” ending unleashes a series of twists that upend “all the power dynamics we’d previously been fed”. You’ll leave confused, which is hardly ideal.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Can Nigel Farage and Reform balance the books?Today's Big Question Nigel Farage has, for the first time, ‘articulated something resembling a fiscal rule’ that he hopes will win over voters and the markets
-
The best quality chocolateThe Week Recommends The milk and dark chocolate bars that win on depth and flavour
-
Crossword: November 3, 2025The Week's daily crossword
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago
-
Salted caramel and chocolate tart recipeThe Week Recommends Delicious dessert can be made with any biscuits you fancy
-
6 trailside homes for hikersFeature Featuring a roof deck with skyline views in California and a home with access to private trails in Montana
-
Lazarus: Harlan Coben’s ‘embarrassingly compelling’ thrillerThe Week Recommends Bill Nighy and Sam Claflin play father-and-son psychiatrists in this ‘precision-engineered’ crime drama
-
The Rose Field: a ‘nail-biting’ end to The Book of Dust seriesThe Week Recommends Philip Pullman’s superb new novel brings the trilogy to a ‘fitting’ conclusion
-
Nigerian Modernism: an ‘entrancing, enlightening exhibition’The Week Recommends Tate Modern’s ‘revelatory’ show includes 250 works examining Nigerian art pre- and post independence
-
The Mastermind: Josh O’Connor stars in unconventional art heist movieThe Week Recommends Kelly Reichardt cements her status as the ‘queen of slow cinema’ with her latest film
-
Critics’ choice: Watering holes for gourmandsFeature An endless selection of Mexican spirits, a Dublin-inspired bar, and an upscale Baltimore pub
