Article by Nik McGrath
Relic (2020) is a feature film made in Victoria, shot in Creswick in regional Victoria and locally in Naarm/Melbourne by a young writer-director Natalie Erika James born in the US (1990), who has Japanese heritage, lived a time in Shanghai as a student before moving to Melbourne in 2009 to complete a Bachelor of Film and Television with Honours at the Victoria College of the Arts, graduating in 2013.
Image: Natalie Erika James on set with Robyn Nevin giving direction
During her degree, she wrote and directed two shorts, a horror short Twitch, in 2011, and romance short Burrow, in 2013.
After graduating from VCA, a few years passed before she directed her next horror short, Creswick in 2017. Natalie co-wrote Creswick with Christian White, she produced, edited and directed. A story about Sam and her ageing father, and the uneasiness she felt in her childhood home. Relic was based on the short. It genuinely gave me the chills, and many of the best elements of the short carry over to the feature film. The complex relationship between family members but also the obligation of caregiving and the shift in family dynamics between parents and their children. The story is about ageing and dementia, and connected to this, a loss of identity and independence. The uncomfortable and spine chilling feelings that places sometimes possess, in this case connected to the family home and how this impacts each generation within the family.
In 2018, Natalie made another horror short Drum Wave, which she has plans to one day make into a feature film.
In the same year, Natalie was given the opportunity to shadow Melbourne’s own filmmaking genre legend Leigh Whannell on Upgrade, and stated in Screen Australia Podcast that she loved being on set, and that Leigh was very generous with his time. Seeing Leigh work on Upgrade gave her a good understanding of the scope of directing a feature film and what to expect. Many of the crew on Upgrade ended up working on Relic.
Relic is director Natalie Erika James’ feature debut, she co-wrote with Christian White, about three generations of women, played by Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin, and Bella Heathcote, who struggle with an unexplained entity in the family home. Edna, the matriarch of the family, played by the marvellous Robyn Nevin, exhibits strange and irrational behaviour, and signs of forgetfulness.
Natalie visited her grandmother in Japan back in 2014, it was the first visit her grandmother couldn’t remember her. Based on her experiences with her grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer’s, and the creepy traditional Japanese house her grandmother lived in, the concept behind Relic was born. Natalie was scared of her grandmother’s traditional Japanese house as a kid. She visited her grandmother most summers. The creepy ageing building gave Natalie nightmares.
The film was also influenced by a news story Natalie saw of people ageing and dying alone in rural parts of Japan, abandoned but their children who had moved to the city.
Robyn Nevin’s character Edna says in the film “This house is the only thing left, all our memories”. The house was designed purposely not to look like a typical horror or Gothic house, but to seem familiar with all the creams and blushes used in the set design, like a grandmother’s house that many of us would be familiar with. The set design includes layers of detail designed in the interiors, to give the sense of being lived in for decades by Edna and her family. The cinematography achieved the sense of growing decay, as Natalie describes, like a faded photograph.
Intergenerational relationships between the grandmother, mother and granddaughter are relatable to most families who have difficult and complex relationships with their parents or relatives. Seeing a loved one age and becoming forgetful, someone who was always so stoic and independent, is painful to watch. My nan had dementia, so this film does touch me on a personal level. I recently rewatched Relic after losing someone I loved, and it's both painful and cathartic, incredible what this young director has been able to achieve in her first feature. Natalie said that people have spoken to her after a screening, wiping away tears, sharing with her that she makes them feel seen, their experiences of loss told through the fabric of her own story. This is the power of what horror can do when crafted with such a depth of feeling.
Relic explores feelings of guilt, resentment, but also tenderness and love. It touches my heart, as the relationships feel real and familiar. In preparation for the shoot, the actors created backstories, Sam felt abandoned by Kay, hence the resentment towards her mother who she doesn’t call Mum but Kay throughout most of the film. Robyn wrote a letter as Edna to her daughter Kay and sent that to Emily Mortimer before the shoot. She put a lot of thought into it, which helped build a backstory. Emily’s flight was delayed which meant the three actors only had three days before the shoot started, never having met, but fortunately they quickly bonded which can be seen in the most intimate and tender scenes in the film.
Natalie shared in an interview that shooting a horror film is emotionally draining for the actors who had to access real emotions. Bella Heathcote who plays Sam had to cry for three days straight, “accessing real shit” stated Natalie, so a relaxed feeling on set was important. Bella called her therapist during the filming saying “I can’t handle this”, and the therapist said “of course you can, you might as well use all of that real trauma” in those difficult emotional scenes. The three actors and the crew got along really well, they joked between scenes, except for the big scenes where the actors had to go to dark places, Natalie tried to create a more closed set. Robyn said that not all sets are safe spaces, but Natalie created a safe space, “so you would go to those emotionally dark places because you felt supported and safe”.
Bella has stated in an interview that some of the most emotionally draining parts of the shoot were in the labyrinth scenes. The labyrinth within the house symbolises the real life experiences of people with dementia and alzheimers forgetting where things are in their own homes. Feelings of being lost inside the house, the black mould, dampness, and cluttered furniture are visualisations of what is going on in Edna’s mind. Bella said while she was crawling through the labyrinth she saw a framed photo of her dead mother which set her off, she was accessing real feelings in these scenes. Robyn said Bella would sit next to her in the makeup chair, still crying, she couldn’t stop after three days straight crying. Bella said once you start crying, the signals are sent to your body thinking something is really wrong, and you find it hard to stop.
Still: Emily Mortimer as Kay in Relic
Natalie said in an interview that “Relic is about confronting mortality, not just your parents' mortality, but your own”. This film tackles some heavy themes.
Hagsploitation, the witch, the crone - old women are a trope in horror. It was important to Natalie that the character of Edna did not perpetuate the crazy old lady or hag horror trope. Natalie stated: “I think the depiction of mental health can be a little bit problematic in horror as well. It was really important that Edna [is] very sympathetic all throughout this story, and that you do get glimpses of her own experiences in everything that’s going on as well. It's not just about an outsider judging her as this crazy old lady …, and I hope audiences really align with her character as well.”
The sound design and score for Relic began in pre-production, creating the atmospheric character of the house, sounds of the house breathing, house creeks, that the house has a pulse.
The film is set in Creswick, a rural town in Victoria, north of Ballarat where Edna lives, about and hour and a half’s drive from Melbourne, where Kay and Sam live. The distance has meant that Edna is alone, and sometimes lonely. The forest scenes were filmed in Creswick, other scenes were filmed in Melbourne.
Relic was shot in 30 days in October to November 2018, pre-COVID. Premiered at Sundance in January 2020, July 2020 in the US, and October 2020 in Australia. Sadly the limited theatrical release in Australia which was planned pre-pandemic didn’t end up happening but Stan coming onboard to stream the film made sure it reached audiences. Some audiences have responded not just to the subject matter of mortality and caregiving in families, but the isolation themes which everyone experienced throughout the pandemic, to varying degrees. Although this story was written and shot pre-pandemic and released during a pandemic, it’s interesting that some reviewers are placing it in a genre of pandemic films.
Natalie’s story and direction is carried by the powerhouse performances of three incredible actors.
Robyn Nevin who plays Edna, was born in Melbourne in 1942. A homegrown talent with significant contributions to Australian theatre as an actor and creative director for the Sydney Theatre Company, Royal Queensland Theatre, and Melbourne Theatre Company, with extensive experience as an actor working in Australian TV and film. Nevin began her career in 1961, and she continues to work as an actor today.
In 2020, the year Relic was released, Robyn was made Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to the performing arts as an acclaimed actor and artistic director, and as a mentor and role model”. Nevin has directed more than 30 productions and acted in more than 80 plays, and has 67 film and TV credits to her name.
Relic was Robyn’s first experience working in the horror genre, after a lifetime working in the performing arts. She is incredible in this, her transformation is remarkable.
British actor Emily Mortimer as Kay brings compassion to the role which in other hands could have lost some audiences because of Kay’s apparent lack of empathy towards her mother. With over 30 years experience as an actor, writer and director, Emily’s portrayal of Kay is one of nuisance, and she got the Aussie accent with no rehearsal!
Bella Heathcote, like Robyn, was born in Melbourne. Her first feature film was Aussie horror Acolytes in 2008. Since then she has been in a number of horror films including Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows in 2012, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in 2016, and in the same year Neon Demon. Bella is in The Moogai, which premiered at Sundance last month, based on the 2020 short. Bella lives in LA but also has a house in Phillip Island. She holds her own with the powerhouse performances of Robyn and Emily. Bella stated in an interview that before working on Relic, she rarely had read scripts with such rounded female characters that realistically and authentically portray the relationships between grandmothers, mothers and daughters.
Still: Bella Heathcote as Sam in Relic
It’s important that we support women working in the horror genre, especially writers and directors. The University of Southern California published a report in January this year, Inclusion in the Director's Chair: Analysis of Director Gender and Race/Ethnicity Across the 1,700 Top Films from 2007 to 2023, “A total of 116 directors were attached to the 100 top-grossing domestic [i.e. American] films in 2023. Fourteen or 12.1% were women and 102 or 88% were men. This is a gender ratio of 7.3 males to every one female being hired” (p.8). Again, it’s important that we support women working in the horror genre, and any genre, particularly writers and directors. These are the creatives who ensure that female stories are represented authentically and with depth in film.
It’s exciting to see Aussie horror have such a resurgence in the last couple of years. Natalie is an important filmmaker to watch out for and support in her future work, and an important voice for Aussie genre films. Currently Natalie is in post production for her next horror feature film Apartment 7A, a prequel to 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby, starring Dianne Weist, Jim Sturgess and Julia Garner. I hope we get to see Apartment 7a in cinemas.
Reference List
In Creative Company (2020) Q&A on Relic with Bella Heathcote, Robyn Nevin and Natalie Erika James: https://youtu.be/r1ejr-qyZLo
James, NE (2024) Natalie Erika James About: https://natalieerikajames.com/About
Screen Australia Podcast, Natalie Erika James making debut feature Relic (2020): https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/screen-australia-podcast/id1342998466
Smith, SL and Pieper, K (2024) Inclusion in the Director’s Chair: Analysis of Director Gender and Race/Ethnicity Across the 1,700 Top Films from 2007 to 2023, Annenberg Inclusion Initiative: https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii-inclusion-directors-chair-2024.pdf
The Final Girls (2020) Relic: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-final-girls/id1484614975
Wixon, H (2020) Interview: Digging into the Horrors of Relic with Director/Co-Writer Natalie Erika James and Co-Stars Robyn Nevin and Bella Heathcote: https://dailydead.com/interview-digging-into-the-horrors-of-relic-with-director-co-writer-natalie-erika-james-and-co-stars-robyn-nevin-and-bella-heathcote-2/