Honeymoon

For their honeymoon, a newly-wed couple Paul and Bea travel to the bride's former home, a rural, sparsely populated community in Canada. A strange encounter with an old acquaintance follows a sleepwalking incident involving Bea and from hereon in it becomes clear that something is terribly wrong.

This indie flick has a very small cast that relies largely on the acting of its two central characters, a couple of Brits called Rose Leslie and Harry Treadway whose American accents are pretty flawless it has to be said. Both put in very strong performances in roles that require a fair bit of range. The characters evolve from so-happy-we'll-make-you-sick just married, through to relationship distrust and eventually onto outright psychological horror. The actors are good enough to convince in all these very differing levels of emotion. Because the story has so few characters, such a remote setting and such intense emotions, it's a film that is somewhat claustrophobic in its effect. It underplays the horror side of things and slowly builds thing up layer by layer. But we are never in any doubt that there is something very strange going on and there are small unusual clues punctuated along the way, such as strange sexual-looking marks on Bea's body, a recurring gooey substance found alongside her discarded night-dress and her strange distant behaviour. To reveal any more would be unfair, so I will leave it at that but suffice to say that this is a very good, mysterious genre piece well directed by Leigh Janiak.

Honeymoon can immediately be assumed as a scary movie, easily because it involves some paranormal situation, but the heart of the story is studying how long would the main couple hold together no matter what. How the characters flesh out their relationship and the sudden trouble of their connection instantly triumphs the whole film, until it still attempts to do something more crazy in the end for the sake of the genre. It sadly doesn't live up to what it has set up and rather turn things underwhelming, but Honeymoon is still a pretty clever psychological thriller that is a lot interesting to watch than your average horror film.

This is basically an ultimate test of a seemingly perfect marriage. The beginning already shows that nothing can keep the two apart, and it's even more clear to how strong their connection is to each other. Once it moves to the mystery, their sweet romance fades, but still doesn't abandon its core. In spite of having a possible traumatic or paranormal involvement to the new behavior of Bea, it still centers to how their relationship goes. The real horror of the film is basically having the fear of losing the loved one and suspecting the worst things to come. It is done terrifically as a slow burn, but what reveals in the end, though can be acceptable, won't be the kind of answer that people would be blown away or terrified at. But the best of the movie is how it smartly defines this couple, even when things get stranger.

Horror films today rarely finds good performances, but this movie pleasantly has two great leads. Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway convincingly shows the couple's affections. Leslie does an excellent job shifting the traits of her character, without taking the weirdness too far. While Treadaway naturally manifests his character's confusion towards the situation. The direction is slick, guided by a decent pacing. The camera-work captures a lot of beautiful shots. Though, horror movies tend to make things look ugly for the sake of being creepy, this movie does have one gross scene that you might not forget in a long time, but most of the experience looks pretty, as an illusion from the terror behind.

Honeymoon still has an underwhelming revelation that fails to be scary or anything beyond that, but the film is better when the horror is much grounded, creating an intriguing symbolism within the mystery. It never really matters where the threat comes from, the film just challenges this newlyweds and there it's already fascinating, by building a much serious conflict. This is the quality that can only be seen in indie horror. It leaves out the conventional tricks and tries to make tension out of its own. But even without trying to be scary, it still offers a good story.

This was a mixed bag for me. There were some successful aspects but more overwhelmingly unsuccessful I think.

It moved quite slowly throughout, and once it really started to get interesting it was over... with a very vague, ambiguous ending at that. It didn't just feel open ended, it felt underdeveloped. The whole story did to be honest... but the idea was there.

The script was... not good. It also felt underdeveloped and slightly juvenile as well. I think that transcended to the actors performances because while neither of them were BAD, both of their performances felt stilted and just kind of weird/off. It also could be due to the fact that they both were putting on American accents, idk.

Despite its many flaws, it was still generally entertaining and I didn't hate it by any means. There was some creep factor and gnarly body horror towards the end. It landed at a 4.5 for me but I will round up as it did keep me engaged. Might recommend, but wouldn't put at the top of your cue.

Who are they? What are the women turn into? Whats that light? Etc.

Too many open questions. I feel left alone with my fantasy.

I offer more Stars for more Information. lol

Totally surprising. Finally, there's been some good horror films this year but none all that great, and I finally found it (that is, if I don't count Under The Skin as horror). The pacing in this is really excellent, and it follows the old-school rule of what it doesn't show us is scarier. It's not incredibly original by any means, but it also doesn't fall into old weary horror clichés and it's all pretty grounded. This is in part due to the script and the really elegant and observant direction, but also because of the two fantastic lead performances. Rose Leslie certainly made her mark in Game of Thrones, and she's one to watch out for in the future. She's incredibly effective here, as is Harry Treadaway. Their chemistry is strong and it's about time we get some great acting in a horror film. This is truly well-acted and engrossing horror, not to mention actually scary. Might just be one of my favorite films the year so far