"Amelia's Children"
Review by Diablo Joe

Audio version


"Amelia's Children"


Writer/Director Gabriel Abrantes’s disturbing, unsettling film “Amelia’s Children” is, at its core, an archetypal horror theme. It will be recognizable to any horror fan as a well-serving basis for many of the genre’s classic stories in literature and cinema. To say which ones would be to spoil some of the story here. But suffice it to say that Abrante’s picture, with its perverse twists, driven by a solid script, moody direction, and some superb performances, provides a worthwhile new take on its topic.

The film opens in Portugal, several decades back, with a pair of mysterious figures attempting to steal away the twin children of the young Amelia. Only one of these nighttime abductors succeeds, and that child, Ed, grows to adulthood far away in New York City. DNA tests reveal his birth origins, and Ed and his girlfriend Ryley venture to Portugal to reunite with his long-lost family: his mother and twin brother.

In the film’s opening scene, we are made aware that there is far more to Amelia than her sweet, young beauty would suggest. This is further reinforced for the audience by the reception Ed and Ryley receive when asking for directions to his childhood home. Once there, Ed meets his brother, Manuel. The twin’s charisma, confidence, and flamboyance are in bold contrast to Ed, who has spent his entire life unsure of his core identity (a powerful pair of divergent performances, both by Carloto Cotti). Even more unsettling is Amelia. Once an archetype of gentle beauty, excessive plastic surgery has left her neither looking old nor at all natural. Amelia fawns upon her newly reunited son with increasingly aberrant overtones and darkening intent. Ed, to Ryley’s horror, almost seems to welcome this bizarre affection.

The unwinding plot twists of “Amelia’s Children” are not where the shocks lie for the film’s audience. The picture’s deeply disturbing mood and tone, with its bold flirtations with taboo and innuendo, make up much of the movie’s horror. This is not a film of scares as much as one of visceral emotional disconcertion. Abrante’s direction keeps the viewer on edge via black humor and forbidden fruits.

As noted earlier, Carloto Cotti is superb in the dual role of Ed and Manuel. Together in the same scenes, the two characters are always distinct, completely convincing as two separate people, despite being the same actor. Whether paired via doubles or through technical trickery, the effect is seamless. As Ryley, Brigette Lundy-Paine is excellent. They avoid taking the character into what could have easily been a thankless, annoying figure of the fish-out-of-water girlfriend. Instead, they have given Ryley intelligence and guile. But it is Anabela Moreira’s twisted and discomforting take on Amelia that defines the movie. Making full use of makeup artist Rita Anjos’s perfectly overdone lift, tuck, and filler prosthetic work, Moreira emotes with an uncomfortable coquettishness and tragic defiance of the effects of time. She is disturbing, disarming, and (especially in one pivotal scene) grotesque.

“Amelia’s Children” is not a film designed to be cathartic. Its familial themes are claustrophobic and anything but comforting, even as they are often subtly blackly humorous. It could have ended up more than a bit crude with a less skilled director or a less brilliant and daring cast. Instead, it disarms with a stylish depravity that works for its story and characters. “Amelia’s Children” are not the family anyone seeks to be reunited with, but horror fans will enjoy the introduction.

This devil of a reviewer gives “Amelia’s Children” 3.5 out of 5 imps.