When you hear Minnesota, you naturally think of a chilly winter packed with snowy roads, frozen lakes, and red noses blushed by frigid temperatures.  Who would have thought that it would be nearly March and we’d be sitting in balmy degrees that resemble early Spring or, heck, even late Fall weather instead? I’m not sure what that means for our upcoming March or April (seriously, pray for us), but the mid-chills made it the perfect climate to stay in the mood for the kind of thrills I enjoy during October. It’s lucky then that there’s been no shortage of supply of scares where new films flying under the radar are concerned.

Here’s a set-up for you. You’ve just found your long-lost family and must travel from America to Northern Portugal to meet them in their villa. The downside is that said villa screams “gothic horror mystery novel setting,” and if you’re expecting a heartwarming family reunion, you’re in for a plot twist that feels like it was swiped from a playbook of local lores and legends. That’s the general mood of Amelia’s Children by writer/director Gabriel Abrantes. While it isn’t going to go down as a bonafide classic, it gets in some decent creeps as it twists and wriggles around its family secrets.

Unbeknownst to him, Edward’s (Carloto Cotta, You Won’t Be Alone) girlfriend Riley (Brigette Lundy-Paine, Bombshell) signs him up for an ancestry website, seeing that he’s never known his family history. It isn’t long before he’s contacted by his heretofore unknown brother Manuel (also Cotta) and is told their mother is still alive and wants to meet him.  She’s too old to travel to him so could he come and visit them in Portugal? As a musician with a flexible schedule, Edward has all the time in the world, so with little hesitation as to the family he is about to meet, he and Riley quickly decide to go international.

Arriving at the mountaintop villa, Edward meets Amélia (Anabela Moreira) and notices something…off…about the mother he has reconnected with. After their meeting, he isn’t shy about telling Riley, “She’s had some work done,”…and that’s putting it mildly. Clever prosthetics by Rita Anjos (which took four hours daily to apply) have transformed Moreira into a puffy-faced plastic surgery gone wrong story, with protruding lips and eyes that peer out from a brow that looks like a sun visor. They say some children have a face only a mother can love, and Amélia’s is best appreciated by her children over the phone. 

Even more than that, there’s something about the way Amélia looks at Edward that gives him a strange feeling, and Riley notices it as well. As Edward falls under his mother’s strange spell, Riley can sense danger is coming for them both and is determined to find out more about her soon-to-be in-laws. As she unravels the secrets buried within the mansion’s walls, she soon finds herself tangled in a web of deception and unspeakable ancient horror from which none of them may ever escape.

For a time, Abrantes beckons audiences into a labyrinth of unsettling secrets and shivery lore that shrouds the family in a specific darkness. Against the backdrop of the once-grand, now-decrepit estate, Amelia’s Children unfolds like a macabre dance, drawing the audience into its mystery with each eerie step. It works best when Moreira slinks around like a grotesque fantasy or has it out with Lundy-Paine’s character and her suspicions. However, it tends to lose its edge whenever we start to involve the men (all played by Cotta) of the family.

In flashbacks, we learn Amélia’s dark history and what has led her to this point. Played as a younger woman by Alba Baptista (Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris), the backstory sometimes plays out like its own prequel. Instead of stretching the run time, these sections work nicely because Baptista and Abrantes work to make these nuggets captivating and integral to inform what is going on in the present. It also allows cinematographer Vasco Viana to play with his lens to cast the imposing villa in a different light. Cutting back and forth between the periods, Margarida Lucas keeps you on your toes, which adds to the suspense.

What doesn’t work is Cotta, and it’s a shame because he’s so central to the story. Often reading his lines like he’s being fed them through an ear prompter, there’s little inflection in his tone or weight given to what he’s saying. Imagine what that sounds like when he’s onscreen playing twins! At least he’s surrounded by a cast of women that can capably get the job done without him, and Lundy-Paine more than holds her own while Nancy Drew-ing her way around the tiny town dwarfed by Amélia’s manse.

Also doubling as the composer, Abrantes wears all the hats well, even if Amelia’s Children is a mixed bag thanks to a disappointing lead performance.  A peculiar little international excursion, it’s a decent way to kill a few hours, and the plot is juicy and twisted enough to give horror hounds a nice snack. For Friday night frights, I think viewers will find this a solid option because it’s fun, in a ‘watching through your fingers’ kind of way, but it might not leave a lasting impression once the credits roll.