Nervous

Recorded Delivery

Nervous
Directed by Abner Pastoll
2026 South Korea/United Kingdom
27th August 2026 Screening at Frightfest

It’s that time of year once again and, as always, one of the films I decided to attend at this year’s edition of FrightFest was the opening film, Nervous.

Now I’d like to say I chose this screening because the film looked really interesting (and, indeed, it did and is) but my primary motivation on this thing was, as always, to be one of the first to check out the FabPress stall for new books and US Blu Rays from the likes of Severin Films, so yeah, mission accomplished on that count.

That being said, I’m so pleased this was the opening film of the festival this year because, it was a truly great movie. After a bit of a false start that is, since the first ten minutes played without subtitles on the Korean parts of the dialogue and then, when they finally realised, they started the film off again with the proper subtitle track.

So, an Irish girl called Sarah, played by Sarah Bolger, goes to Korea with her husband Sungsoo, played by Sungsoo Yune (hmm… I sensing a trend with the character names here). They pitch up at the isolated dream house that Sungsoo’s Aunt has effectively given them but when they get there they find a mysterious intruder who leaves quickly. Also, another lady kinda joins them in friendship called Eunbyeol, who is played by none other than Ko Asung, from The Host and Snowpiercer (reviewed by me here).

But the young couple also find an old gramophone in the attic, which plays a record emitting, seemingly, silence plus weird crackling. Could it all have something to do with the outbreak of dead men and missing women which seems to have been sweeping the area?

Not long after this, Sarah stops being able to hear her husband, who just starts coming out feint and muffled on the audio track of the film. And as Sarah gets more involved with the somewhat mysterious and seductive Eunbyeol, she (and the audience) realises that it’s all men that she can’t hear, while she can hear the women-folk just fine. What’s that I hear you cry? “Not all men!” Well yeah, I think that’s kind of the point… the film does have a not so subtle, ‘me too’ feminist agenda but… it takes its chances with all the other story beats and, in this particular milieu, I didn’t think it was out of place and it's a valid point to make.

And that’s as much as I want to tell you about the plot, suffice it to say that the rogue comments about serial killers and missing women does, indeed, come into play by the end of the tale.

It’s a pretty beautiful film to start the festival off with, to be sure. Absolutely stunning cinematography and frame designs. The director likes to use big rectangular blocks of tonally variant surfaces, textures and colours to both either use as a separator for a couple of characters in a shot or, in one spectacular moment in particular, to bring his characters together in a centred, dark panel of the frame while the two outside quarters of the screen are light and used to highlight that integration of people.

And, needless to say, the film also has some excellent sound design, which, for a film that trades in crackles and muffles, it really does need to have, to be fair.

Not to mention a sequence towards the end which will have you holding on to your right ear in sympathy with what one of the characters does to themselves. It’s a slow burn but that approach more than enhances a couple of scenes which, shall we say, are not for the squeamish.

And that’s me done with this years opening FrightFest film Nervous. An absolutely beautiful film which, okay, maybe needs a more compelling title but is absolutely exquisite and, I just hope it manages to secure both a theatrical and Blu Ray release in this country, at some point soon. Maybe a label like Mubi should take a look at this one.

Amulet

Attic Electricity

Amulet
UK/United Arab Emirates 2020
Directed by Romola Garai
Head Gear Films

Warning: Some minor spoilers.

 Amulet is the feature length writing/directorial debut of actress Romola Garai which had its UK premiere at the Halloween edition of FrightFest this year. It’s a kind of folk horror tale of feminist justice/revenge but it’s one of those that starts off with its roots in the folklore of one country... but then brings it into a slightly more urban environment, following a character to England.

The film starts off with some beautiful photography of lush, colourful and woodland region, as main protagonist Tomas (played by Alec Secareanu) is a solider in his own country who, because of a favour to his father, has been assigned a quiet outpost guarding a woodland border on his own, not seeing much action. We then see him wake up to the dingy colours of England and discover that he dreams about his past most nights. In England, he sleeps rough with a small enclave of homeless people, lining up for ‘cash in hand’ work and just trying to survive each day.

After a fire at the place where he sleeps and with his savings stolen, he is picked up by a nun (played by Imelda Staunton) who takes him to a run down house where he can stay and eat for free as long as he helps out around the place. Here lives Magda (played by Carla Juri from Blade Runner 2049), a somewhat isolated soul who is caring for her dying mother, mostly unseen in the attic. A lady who seems to be dying fairly loudly at times. As Tomas tries to fix up the place and to understand why the water in the house, all black and sludgy, is blocked up with strange looking ‘bat creatures’, we also get regular flashes of his back story during the conflict in his own country, where he befriends a mother trying to cross the border to be reunited with her daughter (played by Angeliki Papoulia, from Dogtooth).

The two different strands of the story play out in tandem, after Tomas finds an amulet in the woods (in the loosest sense of the word... it’s not what I would associate as an amulet but it is within the standard dictionary definition... yes, I checked) of an ancient Goddess, which makes me assume his soldiering was done in an Islamic country... although I noticed on the credits the location work seems to have been done in Dartmoor? As the two narratives play out, the events which happen in the soldier’s past and which cause him to tape his hands up each night so he doesn’t scratch his face off, reliving them in his dreams, informs the impetus of the story arc as he builds a closer relationship to Magda and tries to come to terms with what happens in the house.

It’s pretty good and the director emphasises the differences between the country of the soldier (and also, I think, once watched all the way through, the differences between before and after a certain incident), which are lush and green and full of colour... and the muted tones of the English setting. The dull and dingy streets, the light bleached pastel shades of the downstairs of the house and the dingy browns and hellish, mute oranges of the upstairs environment of the building. It’s nicely done to pitch both a physical contrast and a metaphorical contrast... if I’m not reading this movie totally wrong.

The actors are all great in this and work very well together. Staunton does, of course, shine but really everyone is top notch. The real star of the show, as far as I am concerned, is  Carla Juri as Magda. You think you are witnessing a slow, coming out of her shell approach to the character when, in fact, there's more than this actually happening... but I don’t want to say what because it will spoil the movie for you. The real genius of this character is the absolutely wild and off kilter, totally alien dance moves she throws... especially when she accompanies Tomas to a disco and the contrast between ‘her style’ and everybody else’s is an almost feral but joyful thing... which also, to some fair degree, informs the character as much as anything else which is a spoken revelation in the movie.

By the end of the film I found myself somewhat puzzled. I understood the reasons why what happens does but I couldn’t understand why the form in which the film’s powerful last card which is played seems so convoluted. Ditto to the little epilogue scene bringing two characters together who had not met previously in the running time. I was initially thinking that the last 20 minutes was not a great ending to the movie but, now I’ve slept on it, I think I realise more of the reasoning behind the final fate of one of the central characters and I think I possibly understand a little more about the final ‘punchline’ scene in the movie too.

All in all the cinematography is good, the direction and acting absolutely fine and even the special creature effects are pretty nice. There’s a touch of surrealism about one of the final scenes in the movie too which I think should please a certain section of the audience (I kinda loved the boldness of it in contrast to some of the more subtle decisions throughout the movie). Amulet is a pretty good, tight little genre movie which lovers of horror and specifically, despite its partial urban environment, lovers of folk horror especially should have a good time with. It’s definitely a film coming from the same kind of stance as the ‘me too’ generation too, if that floats your boat and I hope this director gets a lot more projects coming up because I suspect this is just the beginning (fingers crossed). Certainly one to take a look at... it has a good message at its heart and you won’t see many horror films around at the moment doing this like Amulet does it. Definitely try to catch this one.