Amulet is a film whose main goal is to unsettle you. Not necessarily in a horrific way, though you will be horrified by some of the events on display, but as in the other definition of unsettle: to keep you unstable. It keeps its audiences at arm's-length through much of the opening two-thirds, mixing in the past and present to keep the perspective confused. It’s difficult to keep your bearings when assaulted with intercutting narratives and spooky, Gothic vibes.

And that’s before we find a toilet bat.

We meet Tomaz (the wonderful Alec Secareanu from God’s Own Country) in an idyllic and picturesque woods. The trees are long and slim and beautiful. The forest feels primeval and even Eden-like; green and safe. Tomaz is a soldier who, through his mother’s connections, got a prime assignment to guard a border in the wilderness. It leaves him alone to pursue his philosophical readings; in this case Hannah Arendt’s On Violence which becomes a cheeky metaphor for the themes writer/director Romola Garai has in store.

One day, he meets a woman on the run, desiring to cross the border so she can be reunited with her daughter. Her name is Miriam (Angeliki Papoulia) and Tomaz is instantly drawn to her and wants to protect her. He tells her that she can run. He won’t chase. But that the nearest town is a two days walk and she will never make it. But he will help her. She just needs to stay with him for a few days.

This idyllic, almost Adam and Eve past is contrasted with the present, where Tomaz now lives in London. Whatever happened in those verdant greens left lasting marks, though, as Tomaz now fights PTSD and is forced to duct tape his hands at night due to the severity of his night terrors. An arson and a chance meeting with Sister Claire (Imelda Staunton) puts him on a new path and introduces him to a new potential romance in Magda (Carla Juri). Magda lives in a dilapidated Victorian house that’s falling apart around her. She’d almost be alone, if it weren’t for the wailing and moaning coming from her Mother (Anah Ruddin), who has gone made towards the end of her life and now haunts the attic.

Sister Claire offers up free residence at Magda’s home in return for him to help her take care of Magda’s mother; a mother that doesn’t want anyone’s help except from her daughter, who the mother abuses and bites and claws and jabs at with pins.

“Forward is not the only way, Tomaz,” Sister Claire tells him, with that twinkling glint in her eye that only Imelda can do. “There are other roads.”

As he begins to fix up the house, Tomaz begins to suspect that there’s something else living in the house. Something evil. In the flashbacks, he discovered an amulet depicting an eldritch woman with a shell growing out of her head and, in ancient religions, it was believed that shells were a sign to ward against evil. Signs he discovers carved in the wood and on the furniture as he renovates the house.

But it’s when he fixes the toilet and it vomits up a pink bat, hairless except for some whispers of white fuzz, Tomaz realizes that he’s bit off more than he can chew.

On the surface, Romola Garai’s Amulet apes a lot of its thematic stylings from Gothic literature. “Gothic” gets thrown around a lot in horror, particularly as a comparison to the aesthetics of Hammer era of horror films that featured Victorian houses and haunts aplenty. Now, we use the term to describe this vibe and Amulet certainly fits that mold. Tomaz’s present feels slightly out of step with time. The moldering and rotting house designed by Francesca Massariol certainly feels ripped from a different time, with its lack of electricity and dark, ominous halls. The cinematography by Laura Bellingham, meanwhile, feels evocative of the giallo classics, including one eye sequence that brings to mind the work of Fulci. It only complements the film’s out-of-time aesthetics.

If it weren’t for a brief trip to a nightclub blaring POLIÇA’s “Fist Teeth Money” (another cheeky metaphoric hint), the film could be set anywhere, even in the time of the original Gothic novels. And, of course, the madwoman in the attic has become synonymous with the Gothic tradition stretching back to Jane Eyre’s hidden first wife. But what Romola does with the Gothic tradition is subvert expectations and, with a darkly comedic glint in her eye, use our understanding of the text against us. She’s interested in power struggles, both real and perceived, and uses Tomaz as a way of examining the idea of the male protagonist as a protector and savior of the damsels in distress.

By using the idyllic past, with its verdant greens and primordial Eden with only Tomaz and Miriam as a stand-in for Adam and Eve, we see Tomaz at two points in his life, trying to qualm something dark inside of himself by helping women...even though the women repeatedly tell him they don’t need their help. “I didn’t ask you to come here,” Magda tells him at one point. And even Sister Claire offers him a lifeline in the form of a phone, telling him that maybe he should go home.

But who’s helping whom? And who is the victim and who is the aggressor? It’s themes like this that look at Gothic literature in such a fascinating way, as the narrative folds into and subverts the traditional genre contraptions. As the narrative moves into the third act, revelations come fast and violent. Our face becomes a mirror of Tomaz’s as he looks upon the mounting truths with a mix of confusion and abject, uncomprehending horror.

Amulet is going to be divisive. It’s a weird little movie that thrives in ambiguity. It holds its secrets close to the chest and only lets us peak at some of its more visceral surprises with cosmic horror flourishes. As the narrative slams into the third act, the use of color and sight brings to mind Argento even as it plunges further into the cosmic and eldritch themes of old gods and goddesses and an ancient evil that must be contained. As someone who grew up reading tons of Gothic literature, I’m completely down with its weirdness and I can’t wait to see what Romola does next.