Day 02 - Your horror film that you relate most to.

 

    My grandmother passed away in 2020. If you can recall, this was during the COVID 19 lockdown. My family and I could not visit her in the hospital due to the restrictions, but we were able to bring her home on hospice. It was a very rough time for me personally, I hit another all time low in my life after she passed.

    Relic (2020) was available on streaming services during July, a couple months after she passed. I remember sitting down with my mother in the living room and watching it. We watched the film all the way through and I was devastated.

    You see, before my grandma passed, she was already well into her dementia. She never "acted" up with us, never got aggressive. She was just really funny! She made a lot of quips and jokes and the best thing we did was go along with it. However, with other people, she would get triggered and act out of character. All I can tell you was that she remembered me, after everything she had been through. 

    This film hit me like a ton of bricks. It ripped my heart apart! lol. The film is basically a metaphor for dementia, expressed through the lens of horror. That's why horror is one of my favorite film genres, it's very flexible, multi-faceted. It can be as deep or as shallow as you want it to be! And the fact that I watched this film so soon after my grandmother's death... ugh.

    The ending is what really took me out. The film's main characters are a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter. The grandmother is suffering with dementia, turning into this "creature" of some sort. The mother and daughter are running away from the grandmother, but the mother can't just leave her own mother like that. So, the mom goes back into the house and lays down with her mother. The daughter comes in after, climbing onto the bed to cradle her mother. As she hugs her mother, the audience can see how the mother is beginning to turn into a creature like her grandmother.

    My mom was right next to me, watching the movie, by the way :')  My mom will eventually succumb to dementia, just like my grandmother. Then I will be next. That's the way life goes, you know? It hurts so much to think about, it breaks my heart. Life can be so cruel sometimes. But, I still have at least 20 more years before my mom starts getting symptoms. And I have double that time soooooo...

Me and Gramma

    It's a really good film, I definitely recommend it! I don't know if I have it in me to watch it again, but if you're into films like The Babadook (2014) or Hereditary (2018), then you should check Relic (2020) out.