Amer review

An impressive homage to '70s Italian horror

Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet’s baroque Belgian beauty pays homage to ’70s Italian horror but brims with its own sexualised currents of threat and promise.

Sidelining story for a stylised stew of death and desire, it penetrates the fears and fantasies of one girl across three life stages around her family’s seaside mansion.

In childhood, keyholes and corpses spur her imagination; in adolescence, she pouts at bikers; in adulthood, a killer stalks her.

The ravishing direction cuts deepest in this last stretch, with an orgy of eyeballs, blades and flesh so cruelly precise, Argento might approve.

Freelance writer

Kevin Harley is a freelance journalist with bylines at Total Film, Radio Times, The List, and others, specializing in film and music coverage. He can most commonly be found writing movie reviews and previews at 12DOVE.