[5] When Edna, an elderly widow who is suffering from dementia, goes missing, her daughter Kay and granddaughter Sam travel to their remote family home to find her.

Sam and Kay grow increasingly disturbed by a loud creaking from inside the walls and the appearance of more black mould throughout the house.

Following a visit from a doctor, Edna is found to be mostly of sound mind and without injury with the exception of a large black bruise on her chest (resembling the mould).

Back at the house, Kay follows Edna into the garden, where she finds her tearing pages from the family photo album and frantically eating them.

As they escape the house, Kay realises that the walls are no longer rotting and returns to her corpse-like mother to carry her to bed.

She helps Edna peel away the last remnants of her hair and flesh to reveal her final form, a withered rotting corpse (like the one in her nightmare).

In October 2018, Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin, and Bella Heathcote joined the cast of the film with Natalie Erika James directing from a screenplay she co-wrote alongside Christian White.

[10] The film was originally scheduled to screen at SXSW in March as part of the Midnighters section,[11] but the festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The site's critics consensus reads, "Relic ratchets up its slowly building tension in an expertly crafted atmosphere of dread, adding up to an outstanding feature debut for director/co-writer Natalie Erika James.

[18] Justin Chang, speaking on Fresh Air, said: "There are no shocking twists or contrivances in store in Relic, and not a lot of gore, either.

James excels at mining dread and tension from ordinary conversation, and she uses thriller conventions to get at something simple but shattering: the horror of watching a parent slowly deteriorate.