A Wounded Fawn

Travis Stevens' A Wounded Fawn is undoubtedly several notches above his Girl on the Third Floor. The 16mm visual style and gruesome-looking special effects are notable in a film with a straightforward Act One and a twisted Act Two. Art is a key factor in the film, and its finer layers are heavily soaked in it. The plot is simple: an art-obsessed serial-killer (slash thief) is seeking his next target, an art authenticator. But what begins as a slasher with a sprinkling of Greek mythology moves into a much darker, Hell Raiser-esque space, delving deep into surrealism, compounded by a supernatural recompense.

The surprise element here is whether it's the killer's mind playing games with him (after he gets hit in the head) or if he's really in a purgatory-like place where he's being psychologically tortured as punishment for the deadly sins he's committed. What also works are the two lead performances. Both Sarah Lind (as Meredith) and Josh Ruben (as Bruce) are pretty effective. While the film loses a little momentum in Act Two, the much-talked-about end credits sequence is a winner (akin to Pearl), both from the perspectives of storytelling and performances.

A Wounded Fawn (2022) is a unique film that I recently watched on Shudder. The storyline follows a young couple that recently started dating and go on a trip to a house in the country just outside the city they met. When they get there strange things are observed and start happening around the young lady. When she requests to go home her date snaps...

This movie is directed by Travis Stevens (Jakob's Wife) and stars Sarah Lind (The Humanoty Bureau), Josh Ruben (Scare Me), Malin Barr (Honeydew) and Katie Kuang (Westworld).

This is one of those movies if you watch it for just the horror elements it's very entertaining. The storyline is cliche, straightforward, doesn't always make sense and just seems to be there to get to the next great horror scene...but the next horror scene is great. The kills are tremendous, gory and unique. There's a head wound sequence that's insane and very good...everything after the head wound is a bit trippy, but the hand claw was crazy, how it's used was very good, and the ending on the ground was epic and an easy 10/10 scene. The background music is good and creates several eerie circumstances and the ladies in the picture are gorgeous. The acting by Ruben is outstanding, especially at the end. I'm not sure the owl like creature did as much for this film as intended.

Overall, this is a bad movie but average horror picture. I recommend this to all horror enthusiasts as something different. I would score this a 6/10 and recommend seeing it once.

To being a really good movie. I loved the Giallo look and feel of the movie. The first act really grabs the viewer with tension and some genuinely creepy moments. Act two is where things come apart a bit. Goes into overdrive with horror art, then the wheels completely fall off with the pretty ridiculous ending. I know what they were going for, but it just didn't work. The effects range from intentional 1970's bad to pretty gruesome and bloody, for those that like that sort of thing. Good performances and again, the way it was shot, to give a 70's feel, is pretty awesome. I'm sure it's a movie that I'll revisit again in the future, and I may even add it to my home BD collection if it gets a release. Not for everyone, but I do recommend to at least give it a watch and decide for yourselves. Last thing, as another reviewer here stated about this movie and that it's what Barbarian should have been - I wholeheartedly agree.

First and foremost, I would like to put a disclaimer that if you are not a fan of something without a distinct throughline, some artsy fartsy-ness and a true indipendent production... this is plainly not for you. Please, give it a shot, but your close minded 1 star review means nothing in that sense.

Now, with that being said... this was a mixed bag for me and as an indi actor who knows much about the scene, I'll judge it accordingly. There were a lot of pros and cons to this one, yet there are still aspects to be appreciated and enjoyed despite it's missteps.

The first thing you will notice is the grainy filter with dust specs all over it, giving it a 90s film reel feel. At first I was not a fan and found it distracting, but settled into it and liked the older filtered look with the over saturation while assisted by a lot of nice shots. Lots of artsy close ups that felt expected that I could have lived without but it's fine.

The story started out solidly engaging, which the first act was more successful with that than the second. You will notice a lot of spoon fed foreshadowing along with a decent amount of contrived dialogue. Neither were super horrible and almost felt like it was in a purposeful 90s style... at least we can hope. I will say, in the first act they did not do a great job at establishing the level of her and the "mystery mans" relationship. It was like one line would feel like they were strangers, next it would feel like they have known each other for two months, the next three dates.

The second half was when it went into full mania, slowed down a bit and kind of fell off the rails. I'm sure there were plenty of metaphors and allegories that went over my head, which is okay, but if you don't mix that in with a little bit of laymans then your message gets lost and doesn't reach as many people as it could... and if you're not making a movie for the masses, that's fine too but it also runs the risk of edging on pretension.

As far as the acting goes, this was also a mixed bag. On one hand i thought the lead girl did a great job. Her delivery was natural and down to earth yet still had a little flair making it her own and unique. I would love to see her in something else. Whereas our psycho dudeman maybe paled in comparison a bit. He totally looked the part, but a lot of his delivery felt a tad "silly" which could have lent itself to that socially awkward, quirky psychopath... However, it just didn't quite get there for me and came off more stilted and contrived for the majority of it unfortunately. I did however love that extended final shot. So weird and disconcerting. I know that was uncomfortable and not easy, so good job.

Some technical stuff - as I said before I ended up really liking the way it looked. The audio levels were off at times making dialogue a little difficult to hear. Also the sound design/effects were a little much at times and edged on distracting. The score was interesting and I liked it. Loved the costume design, particularly in the first act. Owl man and the reveal both looked a little juvenile and silly while horned twig man was the most creepy and successful. I was pleased with the special effects/ gore for the level of production this was, I thought they did a good job. The only thing was the color of blood was off.

Over all I think that this was a successful indi flick and should be judged as such. This is not meant to be your typical, brainless Hollywood blockbuster...so keep that in mind. I do think that there were a lot of ideas here and maybe their "mission statement" got a little convoluted but with a plethora of ideas there are going to be hits and misses. I don't usually write reviews this long, so when I do I always say it obviously made me feel something. So I'd rather that, than not. Would recommend.

When I stumbled upon the 2022 horror movie "A Wounded Fawn" here in 2024, I had never actually heard about it. But I will say that I was initially intrigued by the movie's synopsis. Plus, the fact that it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, also helped to make me sit down and watch it.

Writers Nathan Faudree and Travis Stevens, with the latter also directing the movie, put together a fair enough script and storyline. It was pretty straightforward, if actually not somewhat generic and predictable. But the added elements of supernatural horror definitely helped to spruce up the movie. It was an adequate movie, but nothing outstanding really.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but I will say that leading actress Sarah Lind (playing Meredith Tanning) and leading actor Josh Ruben (playing Bruce Ernst) put on good performances and carried the movie quite nicely.

Visually then "A Wounded Fawn" was okay. It was not a movie that made use of an abundance of special effects or CGI, not that it really required such. Whatever effects were in the movie were fairly okay, and helped to promote whatever they were intended to do, so that means it was effective.

Director Travis Stevens makes use of some dark imagery throughout the course of the movie, especially in the last quarter of the movie, which adds something unique to the movie. And the costumes with the masks and the wardrobes definitely added a layer of oddity to the movie.

Watchable for what it was, however "A Wounded Fawn" is hardly a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time. If it worth sitting down and watching it, if you are an avid horror fan.

My rating of "A Wounded Fawn" lands on a five out of ten stars.