TEN BURNING QUESTIONS: RELIC Writer/Director Natalie Erika James and stars Bella Heathcote and Robin Nevin talk about horror with purpose beyond scares

Natalie Erika James’ RELIC is the latest example of a female director schooling the boys in how to both provide premium dread and scares, while also lacing the entire thing with an underlying message and depth that will stick with you for some time afterward.

RELIC weaves its horrific tale around three generations of women, played by Robin Nevin, Emily Mortimer, and Bella Heathcote. When Edna (Robin Nevin) goes missing, her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) return to their family’s home in the country. As they try to determine what happened and where she might have gone, the two women discover clues of the onset of Edna’s dementia. Then, just as mysterious as her disappearance, Edna reappears at the house with no explanation as to where she had been. While Sam is happy to have her grandmother back, her mother becomes increasingly suspicious as to what is happening. Edna then begins behaving even more erratically veering into violent episodes, and it becomes more and more apparent that there is an evil energy or insidious presence in the house that is trying to take control of her.

We spoke with James about the challenges of writing and directing the film, working within the genre realm, the casting process, and the inspiration for the story, which came from the experience of having her own grandmother deal with the onset of Alzheimer’s. Joining us were two of the film’s lead trio of stars, Robin Nevin and Bella Heathcote, who talked about the actor/director relationship, women working in horror, and acting with practical effects versus CGI (and the infamous tennis ball on a stick), as well as their assessment (in her presence) on how James fared as a writer and director on her first feature-length film. 

Emily Mortimer in RELIC

Natalie, in your words, what is RELIC about?

NATALIE: RELIC is an exploration of Alzheimer’s, told through a seemingly traditional haunted house story. It follows three women: a grandmother, mother, and daughter. The grandmother has gone missing and the mother and daughter travel out to her remote house in Australia to look for her and while the grandmother comes back fairly quickly, she comes back changed. They have to figure out whether or not it’s the Alzheimer’s or something supernatural.

I frequently am waving the banner of genre films, horror films as art beyond delivering the thrills and chills, and I believe this one very much qualifies as such. Can you talk about your ambitions for the film beyond giving us a scary rollercoaster ride?

NATALIE: Yes, this came from a personal place as my grandmother had Alzheimer’s so a lot of it came from the immediate experience of her condition worsening, her relationship with my mother changing, and the questions about your parents’ mortality, but by extension – your own. These ideas are firmly rooted in the writing of the script. And we always talked about the idea of capturing the essence of the experience.

Obviously, it is a heightened genre film, so it’s never going to be cinema verité or anything like that. But, yes, we are trying to externalize the horrors and fear that we go through when experiencing a loved one in decline – that was always the aim or ambition: to capture that in a meaningful way.

Your background is also Japanese.

NATALE: Yes, I am half Japanese.

Was part of the inspiration from Asian horror?     

NATALIE: Yes, I was obsessed with Asian horror growing up and gothic horror literature, as well. That certainly played a part in influencing my work as a whole. When I came up with the idea for RELIC, I was staying at my grandma’s house, which is has been knocked down since, but at the time it was a 150-year-old Japanese house and it always freaked me the hell out as a kid. So, being back there – the combination of being in a creepy old house and the Alzheimer’s was the seed for RELIC.

And this being your first feature, how was it different for you from directing music videos, commercials, and short films that you have done?

NATALIE: The main difference is that I’m quite a planner when it comes to my short films and my music videos and when you’re working on a much bigger scale as much as you try to there’s so many shifting parts that you can’t plan for every little thing so for me a big part of the learning process was learning to embrace chaos and to ride the chaos and to trust your instincts a bit more.

When you do a six-week shoot inevitably there’s going to be problems that arise and you have to kind of improvise a bit more than you would on a short, so yeah – that was a lesson I learned.

Bella Heathcote in RELIC

And you were able to work with Robin and Bella, who are with us today too.

Yes, in terms of working with Robin and Bella, I think we started casting when 9 Stories came onboard and they hooked us up with a wonderful casting director, AV Kaufman. So, we talked about a bunch of ideas, and for us, of course, it being an Australian film there was always a consideration of bringing in Australian talent and then one international name. So we played around with different combinations, but I had always been a fan of both of their work. As things kind of firmed up, I met with them both individually in L.A. and as soon as I met each of them individually, even before I met them I knew, but meeting them solidified the way I felt – that they were completely right for the roles.

Bella, when you do a film like RELIC, sometimes you are going to have some physical or practical effects to react off of. Then, sometimes there won’t be anything there, because those effects will be added later digitally, so your director will be pointing to a tennis ball on a stick or something like that and say, “Look up there and be scared.” 

BELLA: Yes.

Can you talk about the challenges or the acting process in both those scenarios?

BELLA: I think for me it’s more difficult to bounce back when I don’t have something to work with when you’re just reacting off of a mark on the camera or something like that to look at because essentially I’m just dredging up (and this is probably not the right way to do it) childhood trauma. But that’s kind of how I operate. So bouncing back from that is somewhat trickier than when you have something genuinely to be terrified of. When that’s gone you can kind of let it go.

Natalie and I spoke about this a lot. I lost my mom at quite a young age and that came up a lot. Even when we doing ADR for the film, I said, “If I have to scream MOM one more time..!” But, yeah – childhood trauma…the key to my acting process.

Robin Nevin in RELIC

Robin, one it’s an amazing job that you do in the film because your character is “going in and out”, sometimes you’re with us and sometimes you’re not, and that change often happens on a dime. And, of course, you are being guided by Natalie. Yet, you still have to sell us on it.

ROBIN: I was really completely dependent on Natalie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a horror film. Is ROSEMARY’S BABY a horror film?

Yes, it most definitely is. One of the best.

ROBIN: Okay. And GET OUT. Those would be the only two.

You know, if you HAD to stop there, then you would be fine.

ROBIN: (laughs) So, I didn’t feel familiar with the genre. I read the script and so much of it was in large print (screen directions/EFX) that I thought to myself, “I don’t know anything about that, so I’ll just depend on the director.

And, I’m not always able to depend on the director. I’ve worked with directors on whom I haven’t been able to depend. In this case, I was right there with her. She was very demanding, very exacting, very specific, very calm, courteous, gentle, and I just adored the woman. So I handed over and that’s not always easy to do. My process is difficult to talk about because I just do what’s in the script and I’ve been doing it for so long – onstage mainly, I’m not really a film actress – and I just don’t have a lot of experience there.

Natalie, you had a great trio to work with, but even with that as a given, actors arrive at the place you need them to be (emotionally) at different times. Some are there on the first take, some need some warm up time, and you have several scenes where you have all three of your actors and it’s up to you to massage and guide them to get them all to that “happy place” so to speak. How did you go about doing that? 

NATALIE: Hmmmm..

BELLA: I need three takes to get there…

NATALIE: Yeah, that was Bella’s approach.

ROBIN: I can tell you. She’d watch her little screen (monitor) with intense focus and concentration – very disciplined, this woman – she watched it very carefully and then she knew exactly what needed to be changed and then she told you exactly what needed to be changed. That’s her process.

BELLA: Someone said to once, if you ever want to know if a director is good, watch what they do with the other actors and if they say something to the other actor and the next take is better than the last then you know you can trust them.” And I did that early on on this one and knew I could trust her. “This one, she’s good.”

On top of that, you’re trying to build dread, you’re trying to build tension, and you’re shooting out of order, so specifically speaking about doing a genre picture – where are the challenges in doing that?

NATALIE: Yeah, certainly. I think one of the bigger emotional scenes is after the climax of the film and we had to shoot that in the first week. And it’s a real challenge when you’re trying to feel each other out initially. I distinctly remember we were doing some stuff in studio and we were half-way through the day and then we came up to the labyrinth scene and we chatted through the scene and it is a challenge when you do those scenes and things have to be rearranged and then the actors have to pick it back up the next day. It’s a credit to them the ability to hit the same emotional note and do that day after day. I think Bella had to cry for four days straight.

BELLA: I felt like I was stuck in that labyrinth day after day…

Going into this, being that you weren’t a veteran genre filmmaker, were there fears and trepidations or were you more along the lines of “I can’t wait to play in this sandbox”?

NATALIE:  Of course you always have those fears and trepidations, but I was so excited and I was also fortunate to be able to collaborate with my DP Charlie Sarroff, who had also shot CRESWICK (2017), the proof-of-concept short we had shot for RELIC.

When it comes down to it, the caliber of your actors are what they are and the budgets are bigger, but it still feels like a normal film shoot. I’ve been doing this since my time at university and it’s still so exciting. You don’t get over that. And that always surpasses any fear that you have.

Let’s talk for a moment about women directing horror. The past few years there have been some distinctive female directors in horror, among them Jennifer Kent, Ana Lily Amirpour, Karen Kusama, Julia Ducournau, Hélène Cattaet. Why do you think women have such an affinity for helming genre films?

NATALIE: I’m not sure. It’s a tough question to answer because I tend to think that we’re just directors. Maybe they are making genre films that speak more to women because they are more closely aligned with the female experience, but hopefully it’s just that more women are being given the chance to direct more genre films and now they’re being recognized for it – hopefully.

ROBIN: I saw Jennifer Kent’s most recent film, THE NIGHTINGALE. I was on an airplane and my husband had to restrain me. It is horrifying, but I very much doubt that a man would have conceived of that film, so I think in that instance it had to made by a female sensibility and a female fury maybe.

BELLA: For me, maybe it’s a generational thing, because no one questions males directing horror films –maybe because it’s always been done, and now women are finally being given the opportunity. So for me, when I’ve worked with different directors or been seen for films, it has never been male or female, just good or bad.

NATALIE: Some people say that as women you have lived with a lot of fear in this world so potentially there’s maybe a way they can tap into fear in a way that men can’t, but I don’t necessarily believe that’s the reason why.

ROBIN: But your reason was being fascinated by horror films as a child.

NATALIE: Yes.

“Whatever that sound is. I don’t think it’s mice…”

For the last question, I wanted to return to the difference between working with CGI versus practical effects and the specific challenges of dealing with both.

NATALIE: Yes. I have always loved practical effects and prosthetics work. I just think, as much as you can, to have something physically present, definitely for the actors, but I also think it ages better. In RELIC we had a massive prosthetics element that was enhanced by VFX. So here’s definitely VFX but it’s mostly “clean up” and nothing that’s really completely CGI generated.

We also had this amazing animatronics team. That was incredible because I hadn’t worked with animatronics before and the nuance and expression they could achieve with those controls was really something.

ROBIN: Which means that I may have been replaced by the animatronics.

(Everyone laughs.)

BELLA: I do have to say that it is a lot easier acting opposite something animatronic versus nothing. It’s like having something heartbreaking to behold, it kind of does the work for you – as opposed to the tennis ball on the stick.