Horror Movie Review: Azrael (2024)

Azrael is a 2024 American action horror film directed by E. L. Katz and written by Simon Barrett. The film stars Samara Weaving, Vic Carmen Sonne and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett though the focus is very much on the character played by Samara Weaving (Ash vs Evil Dead, The Babysitter: Killer Queen), the titular character, Azrael.

Azrael is set years after The Rapture (end times) so is a well-known premise, but more in that movies often use it as a threat. Something to be stopped. It’s rare, at least in what I have seen, for a movie to be set after it had already happened. There are plenty of post-apocalyptic movies, but they more often come as an effect of war, plagues or natural disasters than as this religious concept.

In a grim and grey world, the remnants of humanity exist as prey to demonic creatures that stalk, hunt and eat from them but Azrael is focused in a small area and around a forest dwelling cult. Everyone here has had their vocal chords surgically removed as speech is seen as a sin, and it also probably helps with being quiet and hidden. We join the movie to see Azrael and her lover, Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) being ousted from this cult. They attempt to run from it, but are captured and Azrael is tied to a ceremonial chair and offered as a sacrifice to the demonic creatures.

Azrael is not one to just give in though and with the option to fight, or die in front of her, she fights, killing one of her captors and escaping into the woods. She is pursued heavily though, unable to stop even for a few minutes as the cult chases her but so do the demonic creatures who almost melt into sight from the surrounding darkness.

To survive, Azrael takes the fight to the cult, she doesn’t have much choice as they are relentless in their pursuit and are well armed. She breaks into their main camp and that is where we first meet the leader of the cult, Miriam (Vic Carmen Sonne) but as the numbers threaten to overpower her, she flees again.

There is no safety to be found, and after finding her lover, Kenan and being set upon by multiple cultists and demons, she takes the fight to them again in a brutal and bloody assault with an unexpected conclusion.

Azrael is a visual feast with a very dark, grim and creepy world enhanced by the colour, or lack of it. Being set mostly in dark, damp woodland, it helps with the creep factor too. It also helps to be set in quite a fixed area as the filmmakers don’t have to spend too much time, or money, showing a completely “raptured” world, just focusing in on a sinister woodland.

The demonic inhabitants are suitably demonic, and quite human in shape and movement – at least until up close. I struggled to buy into the idea of the cult – they weren’t really very cult like and seemed mostly to just be survivors living in a camp. Yes, they had a leader, and had their vocals removed, but that could as much be to do with trying to remain silent as being to do with speaking seen as sin. The end of the film makes it easier to understand what they are “culting” for though, I guess.

Obviously a large factor of the film is that they have all had their vocals removed within the “cult”. So there is no speaking, no lines, no explanations or anything like that. In fact the one bit of vocabulary in the whole film comes when Azrael is picked up while hitch hiking but even that is done in a foreign language, without subtitles, so, if you don’t speak that language, there is nothing for you.

I guess you are either going to love the silence or hate it. I personally loved it – I liked having to watch, and analyse and make my own mind up about things – about the why, and the what instead of having it spoon-fed to me. Having said that, the story visually is not always easy to follow or very clear so you aren’t going to come to all the right conclusions yourself and are likely to leave the film, a little confused.

It’s not particularly scary, but packs some tension and has some creep factor. There is also plenty of blood and gore with a couple particularly gruesome death scenes.

Overall though, I enjoyed Azrael and thought that Samara Weaving was excellent, really working her movement and facial expressions to convey fear, anger and pain with no lines available to her to help. There aren’t a ton of actors to judge here, but no one stood out as an issue. Samara was a highlight, everyone else was fine too. The ending is not a huge surprise – you kind of start to see it coming – but it was suitable and worked and the demonic creatures look pretty ace too. You get the impression also that it’s line dup nicely for sequels.

At only around 80 minutes in length, it’s definitely worth a watch – it wont blow you away, but it’s fun and worth the small investment of time.