Amelia’s Children was written and directed by Gabriel Abrantes. It begins with Ed desperate to find his family. With the help of his girlfriend, Riley, he reconnects with his twin brother, Manuel. Ed and Riley travel to Portugal to meet his family for the first time where they come face-to-face with his bloodline’s dark history.

Riley is played by Brigette Lundy-Paine. She is a great character. She’s smart, loving, brave, fun, and talented. Lundy-Paine does an excellent job bringing the character to life. Both Ed and Manuel are played by Carlotto Cotta. Ed has no personality. He’s stoic and stiff. He has a few emotional outbursts, which all come off as dispassionate and disingenuous because Ed doesn’t emote during them. Meanwhile, Manuel has no problem emoting. It’s the same actor. How is this a problem? You may assume Ed is the main character. He isn’t. Riley is, and that’s great. The problem is this entire story revolves around Ed, and Ed has little agency in his own story. Ed is not prone to making his own decisions. Amelia, Ed’s mother, is portrayed by two actresses. Albna Baptista plays young Amelia, and Anabela Moreira plays old Amelia. Baptista is very good. Moreira‘s performance sometimes gives me mixed signals. Her Amelia occasionally has weird facial expressions that don’t match her emotions. One time she was upset, but it looked like she was in on a joke. It looked like she was fighting a smile and losing. This may be due to the make-up and prosthetics, but it hinders the emotional beats of some moments. There are issues with the character relationships centered around Ed. I know why Ed loves Riley. Riley does so much for him. I have no idea why Riley loves Ed. He rarely does anything for her. Ed’s relationship with his brother and mother is barely explored. The characters talk about the connection he’s building with his family, but it isn’t shown. There is one cute moment with him and his family, but it didn’t feel earned. A character remarked on Ed changing, but at that point, Ed was exactly the same. I didn’t see any evolution from Ed until after that, and when he finally did evolve in some way, that didn’t feel earned either.

To me, the opening was the most suspenseful scene in Amelia’s Children. The horror elements flop regularly because I’m rarely affected or impressed by jump scares. The jump scares are doing a lot of heavy lifting, and they are not interesting or clever. The primary enemy of the suspense is the oddity. The oddity didn’t enhance the horror; it distracted me from it. Onto more positive things, Amelia’s Children builds and maintains a solid atmosphere. It depicts some nice imagery now and then. The effects are genuinely good. You can see the work put in to sculpt old Amelia’s face and body, but the face is ineffective. Old Amelia doesn’t look convincing. She looks like a young person with make-up and prosthetics on. Moreira’s youthful features shine through, and while that’s a compliment to her, it’s a shame for the people who worked so hard to try and hide that.

I can see the effort put into Amelia’s Children. I can see it in the performances, the effects, and the cinematography. I appreciate all of it, but even if my character issues were resolved it would still fall short due to the shallow and ineffective nature of its horror elements.

5 out of 10