SXSW 2024 Review: AZRAEL, Samara Weaving Leads Dialogue-Free Ripper
In a future some time beyond the Rapture, a sect of penitents renounces the gift of speech in the hopes of secondary salvation. However, their survival depends on more than piety, and when a sacrifice goes awry, one former believer is out for vengeance in director E.L. Katz’s (Cheap Thrills) unusual survival horror, Azrael.
Azrael (Samara Weaving) and Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) are on the run. At first, we don’t know what from, but just as quickly as we are introduced, they are captured by a group of voiceless religious zealots and dragged to a blood sacrifice to appease the evil things living in the surrounding woods. Azrael is to be surrendered first while Kenan is taken back to the village, presumably for a subsequent ritual, but this woman is no shrinking violet, and she escapes on foot into the woods, determined to rescue her man and fly away to freedom. What follows is seventy-five minutes of hectic chases, violent battles, and vicious gore, all with the camera focused firmly on Azrael’s increasingly haggard but resolute visage.
We are dropped into a world that has gone cold, silence seems to be enforced upon nature itself, with the only sounds coming from the struggles between the hunters and hunted. Though it is initially a shock, the film doesn’t give the viewer time to stay confused to adjust, it just throws you in the deep end, trial by fire; and it couldn’t have worked any other way. While details and characterization are scarce, we are at least clear about Azrael and her character. She is a fighter, and Weaving’s performance is outstanding.
This obviously isn’t time that Weaving has been dropped into a survival horror film as the lead. She was remarkable in Radio Silence’s breakout debut, Ready or Not in a somewhat similar role. Her knack for expressive performance, dedication to the physicality that this role requires – lots of running, falling, fighting, etc. – and those incredible eyes that tell a full story with just a glance, all serve her well here. If ever there was a perfectly cast role, Azrael is it.
While the film jumps into the action feet first, it can take the viewer a bit of time to catch up. Though some of the specifics are bound to be a bit perplexing on a first viewing, the overarching concept is crystal clear. This woman wants her man back, and she’s not going to let anything stop her. Not religious zealots, not bloodthirsty forest demons, nothing. On one level, that’s more than enough, and the film acknowledges the simplicity of its concept with a blissful eighty-five-minute runtime, but there’s plenty more to glean for the eagled-eyed.
Azrael’s post-Rapture setting leaves plenty of room for creativity when it comes to production design, and the choice to keep everything low-key is helpful in focusing the attention where it belongs. When Azrael returns to the sect’s woodland compound, it looks and feels like a pilgrim village from the 17th century. There are no lights or running water, it’s back to basics with the community focused around a church with a number of alarming murals decorating its walls to help explain the level of danger that surrounds them. It’s easy to see why Azrael wanted out, but even easier to see why she doesn’t intend to leave alone.
Thankfully for us, the wordless nature of the film surpasses the potential to become gimmicky hokum quickly and the viewer finds themselves rapt by Azrael’s plight. This is helped along by an impressive amount of very visceral gore, well-mounted action, and a tight screenplay that wastes no time getting to what’s important. Shot impressively by Mart Taniel (November) and awash in a suspenseful soundscape created by Tóti (Þórarinn Guðnason), the technical aspects create a truly immersive experience in which we are all fighting for our lives alongside Azrael.
No discussion of the film would be complete without acknowledgement of the exceptional “burnt people” creatures created by Dan Martin’s 13FingerFX (Possessor, Color Out of Space). The creatures are simple, just charred humanoid hunters who go feral at the scent of blood, but they are executed so well that it’s worthy of note. There’s a particular sequence toward the end of the film where one of the creature’s faces fills the frame, and it’s every bit as terrifying as it should be. Thank heavens for practical effects!
Written by genre film veteran Simon Barrett (You’re Next, The Guest, A Horrible Way to Die), Azrael is a shockingly effective experiment in dialogue-free filmmaking. While it has been proven that this can be a recipe for success – look no further than the runaway success of A Quiet Place – Azrael feels different. Barrett and Katz manage to deliver not only superb action and real tension throughout, but also use visual language to convey a fairly complex mythology without overexplaining, allowing the viewer to fill in gaps when needed and sit back and relax when the action gets heavy. Azrael is a thrilling sprint through a heretofore unexplored hellscape that had me riveted, this is definitely one to look out for.
