‘Azrael’ Review – A Savage World Decays in Silence
Written by Simon Barrett (Blair Witch, The Guest) and directed by E. L. Katz (Cheap Thrills), Azrael is set in a world where no one speaks. Barrett and Katz are big fans of genre and arthouse films and this action horror film was inspired by international cinema that Katz discovered during the Covid lockdown.
There is no dialogue in Azrael apart from one brief scene with a character that is swept away as soon as they’re introduced. Azrael (Samara Weaving) is on the run from a religious community. She is eventually captured and tied up in the middle of the woods, meant to belmfa an offering to the burnt souls lurking in the forest’s depths. Escaping once again, Azrael has to figure out a way to survive while satisfying her desire for vengeance.
Simon Barrett says a recurring nightmare dating back to 2018 is what eventually became the screenplay for this film. The few lines of dialogue in Azrael are in Esperanto: a made-up language from a 1966 film called Incubus starring William Shatner. No subtitles are offered for the scenes where Esperanto is spoken.
Since there’s no dialogue otherwise, Azrael is a film that is mostly open to interpretation and will mean slightly different things to whoever watches it. In Islam, Azrael is an angel of death. He removes the soul from the bodies and escorts them into the afterlife. With how much death there is in the film, you could say that Azrael could be a female angel of death.
The religious community is led by a pregnant woman named Miriam (Vic Carmen Sonne). Miriam spends most of her time in the local church while sending her right hand Josefine (Katriina Unt) to gather offerings and clean up messes.
There are what look like burnt corpses that roam the forest. They sometimes shuffle around like zombies, but can also run if needed. It isn’t clarified if they used to be people or are the dead resurrected, but they eat human flesh, drink their blood, and gnaw on their intestines. With a buried-alive sequence that leads into an underground tunnel, the comparisons to the crawlers from The Descent are not unwarranted.
The film was shot in Estonia and much of the crew was hired locally including cinematographer Mart Taniel (The Invisible Fight). There are two quite memorable visual shots thanks to the camera work. Right after Azrael reaches the water when she escapes with the cut on her leg, she pauses to catch her breath. There’s a tracking shot through a trickling waterfall that crawls up behind her.
Right after that, Azrael is found by one of the burnt souls. She takes refuge in a dark corridor. The only light in the scene is coming from the doorway to that corridor where this scorched body is hovering in the doorframe, limbs dangling, and shuffling around in creepy and inhuman ways. It’s unsettling but incredibly shot.
Shades of Outlast 2 aside, Azrael has a quick pace, clocking in at around 78 minutes with eight minutes of credits. It feels like the majority of the film is a good versus evil kind of mentality with Azrael simply trying to survive while an entire society hunts her down to sacrifice her so they can live in peace. The burnt that occupy the forest are like a force of nature. They can’t be reasoned with or altered in any way, so humans abide by their rules and plan accordingly no matter how morbid it may be.
It’s not like bloodshed isn’t introduced early on in Azrael, but the last 15 minutes are an all-out war. Blood gushes and sprays on walls, there are multiple beheadings, and someone slices their own throat from ear to ear. The finale of the film is what will make or break your opinion of the film. Symbolically it seems like Azrael is hinting at Hell on Earth, but the fact that it ends right when it’s at its most interesting moment is a bit infuriating.
Azrael offers a different type of horror film. There is a story here, but it’s told unconventionally; through body language and nasty violence. A fascinating aspect is that the film can be looked at as the calming of a common evil or the birth of something entirely new and terrifying. Azrael plays out like a hypnagogic nightmare that you can’t wake up from. A hellish purgatory we’ve all been subjected to and can no longer escape from.
Azrael (2024), IFC Films/Shudder
PROS
- An original concept
- Unpredictable
- Some great practical gore
CONS
- Its ambiguity can be frustrating
- Its bold ending will be divisive
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