Newlyweds, Paul and Bea, retreat to a lake house to celebrate their honeymoon. Things take a dark turn shortly after the fresh groom finds his bride wandering the woods at night, naked, and incoherent.
The horror / mystery film, Honeymoon, was writer / director Leigh Janiak’s cinematic debut. Co-created with their writing partner, Phil Graziadei, Honeymoon is the result of several years of conceptualization and writing. Janiak was inspired by 2010’s Monsters and Tiny Furniture, two films separated by genre that offered parallels in regards to love and separation. Tales about how small moments can harbor the most significance. The writing duo took on a similar approach when crafting Honeymoon’s narrative. With a small cast, a limited set of locations, a few years of writing, and a limited budget, Honeymoon went from an idea to becoming a fully realized film about a couple’s downward spiral after an otherwise innocuous act of sleepwalking. Honeymoon released in 2014
Game of Thrones darling, Rose Leslie, is on the film’s poster. She’s clearly the bait to get folks like me intrigued enough to hit play, and it worked. As a fan of her roles in GoT, The Last Witch Hunter, and Death on the Nile, I was amazed to find her in a horror film that I had somehow overlooked. However, after watching Honeymoon, I can see why none of my horror-loving peers ever recommended it to me. While Rose puts in the effort to sell her character to the audience, her three co-stars are either overacting or speaking unnaturally in ways that kill any potential immersion. Co-stars Ben Huber, Harry Treadaway, and Hanna Brown, deliver the kind of performances I’ve come to expect from early 2000’s SyFy Channel exclusives. Harry Treadaway plays the husband, Paul, but horror fans will recognize him as Penny Dreadful’s Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Later roles show how his acting has improved since 2014. However, supporting actors Ben Huber and Hanna Brown have had limited acting experience. Hanna has done a series of short films since Honeymoon released, and Ben has moved on to working behind the camera – directing episodes of shows such as Peacemaker. With different career ambitions, skills, and approach to the craft, the combined effort of all four performers just couldn’t win me over.
The only thing that could save the viewing experience would have to be an intriguing plot and, up until the final act, I was at least curious about where the movie would eventually wind up. The newlyweds, Paul and Bea, go to a lake house in a quiet wooded area to celebrate their honeymoon away from life’s chaos. They discover they’re not the only people in the area when they check out a local restaurant to see if it’s open and run into Bea’s childhood friend, Will, and his partner, Annie. Will exhibits signs of aggression, destroying a lamp before he realizes the newlyweds are in his store. Annie is soft spoken, apparently ill, and shows potential signs of extreme abuse. Later that evening Paul and Bea discuss their encounter with Will and Annie. Neither of them seem to land on abuse, as the idea of Annie appearing sick becomes the main focus. That night, Paul wakes up to walk their dog, and finds Bea naked in the woods, wandering around catatonic until her husband gets her attention and she begins to scream. Back at the lake house, Bea tells Paul she’s fine but, as days pass, Bea’s behavior shifts, and her memory begins to falter. Tensions rise as the couple struggle to understand why Bea was in the woods, what happened to her, and how Will might be involved. Eventually Bea begins to exhibit the exact visual symptoms they saw in Annie and the film’s final act comes crashing in.
Your chance to avoid the film’s twist comes after the next sentence. This is your last chance as the film’s climactic revelation is about to be directly addressed. You’ve been warned. That said, it’s aliens. Several visual clues presented early in the film give it away rather quickly. Bea and Annie have been impregnated by “Dark Figures”, as they’re described. The women are withering away, body and mind, as a foreign entity resides within them, using them for incubation. After a little bit of alien fueled body horror, a lot of yelling, and some significant eye rolling, the film concludes with both women wandering into a mysterious light. There’s no real conclusion, just an alien baby worm creature and a bright light. I understand that the film may have been an allegory, but I’m still not sure what for. Overall, the film is aggressively underwhelming. I can find plenty of positive reviews online for it, but even the most gracious rating rarely gives the film anything above a six. This pains me to say, but Leigh Janiak’s directorial debut is the weakest entry I’ve explored for the Women in Horror events here at Cinema-Crazed and I can’t bring myself to recommend it. However, I can honestly say that this is Leigh’s only stumble. Her later efforts, such as the Fear Street trilogy, and works on such shows as Scream: The TV Series and Panic, all show creative growth and promise. Everything since Honeymoon has consistently rated higher, and Leigh has a resume worth being proud of.
Maybe you’re curious about how rough Honeymoon is, or you think maybe I’m not giving the film enough credit. You can judge the film for yourself and see if I was too harsh. Honeymoon (2014) is currently streaming for free on TUBI.