Azrael (2024) by E.L. Katz

Director: E.L. Katz

Year: 2024

Country: USA/Estonia

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Creature Feature

Plot:

Living in a post-apocalyptic society, a woman living with a cult of mute women worshiping a strange deity in the woods finds that she’s set to be a sacrifice to the figure which forces her on the run to stop it from happening, sending her on a perilous quest to get to safety.

Review:

This was a severely disappointing and underwhelming genre effort. The central setup of this one starts off nicely enough with the world-building of the future society, how they live following the apocalypse, what their universe is like, and what’s going on with the creatures in the woods that they live in fear of which requires her to be a sacrifice that sends her on the run deep into the woods. It’s quite enjoyable to see this type of storyline in practice with the whole thing getting a chance to create an immersive and original universe rather than a typical post-apocalyptic scenario that all sets up the main action here in the second half involving the trials and tribulations of escaping what’s happening to her and survive against the forces coming after her which makes for a series of surprisingly brutal and graphic confrontations that are employed here by not just the demonic creatures but also the group trying to capture her as this all comes off incredibly well. As it all leads to plenty of gore and some solid action in the finale, there’s a lot to like here overall.

Otherwise, this one comes off far more frustrating than anything which is mainly due to a bizarre gimmick that’s necessary and completely unearned. By going completely silent and not speaking, this setup comes off exactly like a gimmick rather than something earned as everything about it makes no sense in the context of the universe within it. The creatures they fear aren’t shown to be able to hunt them down through sound or noise as they're making sacrifices for them so not being able to fill in on what’s going on or what any kind of setup in the society means without being able to tell what’s going on or how everything came to be in the first place. Moreover, with there not being a way to determine what they’re hunting her for, this comes off far more as speculation than anything so it takes a lot of the impact out of what’s happening leading to long stretches where nothing interesting happens which makes for a tough time getting invested in anything. This is all unnecessary due to the decision to go with the lack of dialog so it’s a curious decision that harms the film more than anything.

Overview: *.5/5

A really disappointing and underwhelming creature feature, this has enough to like to enjoy about it to be watchable enough although the series of drawbacks here do impact this one the most. Viewers who are intrigued by this approach or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here while most others out there should heed caution with this one.