By George & Josh Bate
Jamie Lee Curtis. Janet Leigh. Neve Campbell. Heather Langenkamp. These are just some of the names that come to mind when the illustrious term ‘Scream Queen’ is thrown around. Recently, between Ready or Not, The Babysitter, Scream VI, and Ash vs Evil Dead, Australian actress Samara Weaving has emerged as yet another actress deserving of the Scream Queen title. In her latest horror flick, however, the ‘scream’ is taken out of the Scream Queen as Weaving plays a character unable to speak, living in a pseudo-post-apocalyptic world in which speech is considered a sin and bloody-thirsty creatures roam the Earth.
Azrael comes from director E.L. Katz, who is perhaps best known for directing the Nikolaj Coster-Waldau film Small Crimes for Netflix, and accomplished horror movie screenwriter Simon Barrett, who wrote the scripts for You’re Next, The Guest, and Blair Witch. As detailed by stark red on-screen text that kicks off the film, Azrael takes place in a version of the future in which verbal expression is seen as sinful (for some unexplained reason). That’s not all that is unusual in this world though as mysterious, vicious creatures are lurking. These creatures have a hyper-sensitivity for the smell of blood, capable of sensing if a person is bleeding and then proceeding to monstrously eat the person alive.
Films and shows that take place in post-apocalyptic worlds, or versions of the future that have undergone some radical change, are commonplace. Whether it be the wasteland in Mad Max or the worlds in The Road, Snowpiercer, The Walking Dead, and A Quiet Place (to name a few), doomsday stories are extremely common and, as such, have the challenge of distinguishing themselves from the variety of similar stories that came before it. Sometimes, this distinction comes from particularly stylized filmmaking (as is the case with George Miller and the Mad Max movies). Other times, this distinction comes from a unique context for the doomsday scenario (as is the case with John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place franchise). In Azrael, what makes its particular post-apocalyptic background standout is more nuanced.
Azrael throws audiences into this world with little context and provides very little additional context throughout. The state of this world, why speech is considered sinful, and how these bloodthirsty creatures came to be are all ambiguous, and remain ambiguous for the totality of the film. While some abstraction is often seen in such doomsday movies, the absence of any context or explanation means Azrael arguably leaves some of its most interesting and distinguishing features unexplored. The ominous red, biblical-like text that opens the film and is interspersed throughout hint at some kind of religious backlash to speaking that led to the current state of the world. But such an intriguing narrative element is frustratingly left on the table, unexplored and undiscussed (literally and figuratively). Later in the film, a certain event occurs that throws faint assumptions made about this post-apocalyptic world further into ambiguity, which again intrigues as much as it frustrates.
If one can get over the lack of explanation and context (or if one heads into the film knowing that there will not be answers to questions posed about this world), Azrael actually ends up being quite the thrill ride. The entirety of the nearly 90 minute movie takes place in a forest (the film shot in Harju County, Estonia) and, unlike Mad Max or some other post-apocalyptic worlds, there isn’t anything aesthetically unique about this doomsday landscape. It’s a testament then to the intensity packed into this rapidly paced horror film that, despite a fairly mundane setting, it captivates with incredible intensity.
There are a number of scenes in Azrael that are the definition of nail-biting. An early sequence in which Samara Weaving’s character is tied up and bleeding as one of the vicious creatures slowly approaches is a particular highlight, but this is just one of many sequences directed with a commendable sharpness and intensity by E.L. Katz.
As the film progresses, Azrael ventures more into action movie territory and, eventually, ends up feeling like a blend of action and horror. The horror comes from the creatures and the visceral practical effects that go into their design and the sequences of the creatures eating humans. But the action comes from struggles between Weaving’s character and another group in the forest. Between the more horror-oriented first half and the more action-oriented second half, there’s an undeniable entertainment quality to Azrael, even if the lore and context of its fictional world leaves quite a bit to be desired.
Spearheading the entire film is Samara Weaving, an actress who builds upon her already impressive horror CV seemingly every year. In Azrael, Weaving plays a character with far more subtlety and silence than her previous efforts in the likes of Ready or Not and The Babysitter. And yet Weaving excels in this more subdued role. Playing a character deprived of the ability to speak, Weaving puts in extraordinary work to convey complex emotions of grief, anger, and sadness with body language and facial expressions alone. It’s a different kind of performance than the ones we’re used to seeing of Weaver, and a turn that shows the impressive actress has numerous, varied dimensions to her acting repertoire.
VERDICT: 7/10
Samara Weaving the Scream Queen plays a hero who can’t scream in the new horror film Azrael. The movie fails to provide context or explanations for the intriguing post-apocalyptic world in which it takes place, which, in turn, leaves some of the film’s most promising elements (i.e., characters who view speaking as a sin) unexplored. What does work in the film though is the sheer intensity it achieves, as evidenced through a number of extremely well-crafted, nail-biting sequences. The creatures who roam the Earth seeking out blood are superbly realized with incredibly impressive practical effects, and the brutality of their kills is not for the squeamish viewer. As the film progresses, the creature horror evolves more into human-on-human action, making Azrael feel like as much of an action movie as it does a horror movie. Featuring in nearly every moment is Samara Weaving, who brings a nuance and subdued characteristic to a role that she nails beyond any doubt. Azrael may stumble with its world-building and context-setting, but underneath those issues is an intense blend of horror and action featuring a terrific lead performance and excellent practical effects.