In a world in which no one speaks, a mysterious, devout community hunts down a young woman named Azrael (Samara Weaving) who has escaped their imprisonment. Recaptured by its ruthless leaders, she is to be sacrificed to pacify an evil which resides deep within the surrounding wilderness – but Azrael will stop at nothing to ensure her own freedom and survival. From the seeds of this gritty, relentless parable of sacrifice and salvation, comes an immersive, real-time, action horror tale from the visionary minds of Simon Barrett and E.L. Katz.
What We Thought:
Azrael is sort of a zombie film without the zombies. It’s a post-rapture world (think post-apocalypse) and the characters don’t speak. There are humanoid creatures (think zombies) that eat other humans and without speaking, it’s hard to communicate to others. Only one character in the entire film has dialogue and that’s in a foreign language.
Samara Weaving plays Azrael, a woman who escapes a community in the woods and they hunt her down. She will do whatever it takes to survive and Weaving is great in the role. Weaving is an underrated genre actress who’s been great in films like Ready or Not and Mayhem. This movie would be a complete disaster with a lesser actress. It’s not a great flick, but Weaving holds your attention and handles the role well.
I give it credit for trying something new. It could have been just a zombie film, but they change it enough to not be yet another forgettable zombie story. Add in the fact that there is no dialogue and the attempt to be different is appreciated even if it’s a film I’ll probably forget about later on.
Samara Weaving does her best to make Azrael interesting and it is just interesting enough to watch. It doesn’t shatter the genre or anything, but if you are looking for something just different enough from the over saturated zombie genre give it a try. There is some good gore and the location works as well. Weaving fans will like it.
Special Features:
- Filmmakers Commentary Featuring Simon Barrett, E.L. Katz, and Dan Kagan
- Set Design Gallery
- Concept Art Gallery by Carlos Laszlo
- Church Fight Featurette: Pre-Visual vs Final Cut
- Make-up Special FX by Dan Martin
- Behind the Set Clips: Church After Dark, Tent Village
The Nerds Templar 