Sunday, September 14, 2014

Screaming Sunday - Honeymoon

By s. Sunday, September 14, 2014 ,
Movie rating - 73/100
Plot:  Young newlyweds Paul (Penny Dreadful's Harry Treadaway) and Bea (Game of Thrones' Rose Leslie) travel to remote lake country for their honeymoon. Shortly after arriving, Paul finds Bea wandering and disoriented in the middle of the night. As she becomes more distant and her behavior increasingly peculiar, Paul begins to suspect something more sinister than sleepwalking took place in the woods.
The heroes: Paul, who is trying to figure out what happened to his beloved wife.
The antagonists: Something bad in the woods.
Best scene: The chilling scene on the lake near the end.
Oh-oh something's not right line: She's not being herself today.
What makes it so great? The film is genuinely scary - it has a very tense, creepy atmosphere, terrific suspense building up throughout the entire movie and so far it's the best horror film of the year.

It's a debut film from female director Leigh Janiak, featuring only four actors (the other two playing Bea's ex boyfriend and his strange wife) and shot with a very small budget. The director was inspired by the works of David Cronenberg, Alien, Rosemary's Baby and Haneke's Amour while making the movie and it definitely shows - the elements of body horror as well as closeness and then divide between the couple are very important here.

The film is extremely effective not only because of Janiak's work but also because of great lead performances from Treadaway and especially Leslie. Leslie, who shone so bright in Game of Thrones actually injecting some energy in scenes featuring her and Kit Harington, was wonderful here - sweet, innocent, loving, only to transform to distant and manic in other moments. She hits all the right notes and manages to be both very sympathetic and heartbreaking and on several occasions quite scary.

The film also has a gorgeous score and very good cinematography. But the performances and the story (which also works as a scary metaphor for pregnancy) are really what matters the most and it's very rare in horror genre when it happens.
Scare factor: - 4/5 evil pumpkins - once Bea goes into the woods the tension begins and it doesn't let go until the movie's horrific ending.
Gore factor:- 2/5 bloody Leatherfaces - there is blood and few body horror scenes, but it's nothing extreme. Ladies may find those scenes very unpleasant, though. I sure did.
Is there a twist? Not really, unless you consider the answer to whether it's still Bea or not a twist.
Hint: Do not watch it on your honeymoon.
Unsuitable for: Anyone in a relationship or vacationing in the woods; expecting couples
Repercussions: I'm fairly certain if you wanted to spend your honeymoon in a lake house, you will choose another destination after watching this one.

14 comments:

  1. great review Sati! I actually thought this was a decent horror and I found it quite refreshing, I mean premise-wise this is truly something different and I can admire that, but this is not my cup of tea when it comes to the horror genre but there is no denying the cast are strong and that one "birth" scene is horrific!

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    1. Thanks! I saw your letterboxed review, sorry you didn't like it more! I'm glad you liked the performances.

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    2. yeah Im working on my full review now and I feel I was a bit too hard on it haha you should do more Screaming Sundays! :)

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    3. I should, unfortunately I don't get to see many horror movies these days - I have stuff to watch for several blogging events and there are no horrors there + there are not many good horror movies lately, though I plan on watching Oculus soon.

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  2. Good review. I still need to watch this. We always get late premieres in Georgia, so I guess I have to wait for quite long time. By the way, this one has a brilliant poster :D

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    1. I think it's a very limited release in theaters, but it was released online already like most indie movies are nowadays :)

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    2. oh, yeah, I just found it :)

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    3. Hope you'll like it if you decide to watch it!

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  3. I was curious to see it and then read it was horror and got a bit scared just by thinking about it. :D

    I'm not good with horror, I don't really tune in for it but I try to and this might be something I'll watch.. just because it seems so simple and I do love Treadaway for some reason.. though I haven't seen him a lot.

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    1. It's not hugely scary like Alien, but it's scary enough :)

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  4. Nice review! I'd like to see this one too, especially for Leslie.

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    1. Thank you! I hope you'll get to see it, she's excellent in this!

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  5. Great review! I'd never heard of this, but it sounds intriguing. Adding it to my watchlist.

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    1. It's really a very good horror flick, not many of those are out these days

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