phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2024

Amelia's Children



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 31m
Country: Portugal
Language: English, Portuguese
Genre Tags: Horror, Thriller
Plot Summary: Edward searches for biological family in Portugal. He finds a villa and reunites with his long-lost mother and twin. But their shared past holds a dark secret that will forever change his understanding of his identity and origins.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: This needed to be either more weird/campy or more scary, and it wound up being neither. It'll get on a sort of over-the-top goofy vibe, but then brings the jumpscares with an excessively loud score. In between it's mostly inert. For a movie about an incestuous witch living in a giant house in a Portuguese forest, there's not much of... anything going on. Characters are paper thin. Plots is almost nonexistent. Sure, there's a cursory explanation for what's happening, but that's only through the slightest of expository dialogue. There's a ton of weird backstory left on the table. Either go full gonzo and spread the crazy story out, or tighten the screws and make a tense thriller. Instead we have the dull middle of the road.


Outside Reviews:

Simon Abrams
3 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

I’m not really sure how genre fans will respond to “Amelia’s Children,” a Portuguese horror comedy about a suspicious wife, her clueless husband, and his creepy family. “Amelia’s Children” is funny, but the jokes are usually on its characters and their Freudian anxieties. It’s the quasi-gothic scenario that’s amusing here, and it’s as fraught as it is straight-forward. That and a perverse sense of humor puts “Amelia’s Children” over the top, though it’s never quite ha-ha hard enough to be satirical, nor sincere enough to be campy.