Who hasn't dreamt of leaving normal life behind to escape to a cabin in the woods? Avalon Fast's debut feature, Honeycomb, ponders deftly on that notion, and puts a divine feminine spin on the trope of going into the wild. Owing to the horror of Canadian cult classic Ginger Snaps before it, Avalon Fast's deranged arthouse feature has bite — and the good-for-her cinematic universe now has a new B-horror to add to its roster.
Five girls, bored with the banality of young adulthood, wander off into the wilderness after discovering a mysterious cabin in which they decide to make their new home. They ditch society's rules, hatching a new set of laws to govern them — including the rule of suitable damage, which states that if one girl hurts another, the group can punish the offender with harm of equal measure. As you can imagine, it's not long before things get all Lord of the Flies, and the girls' new society and its arcane punitive structure begin to unravel.
The film itself is a clearly low-budget project, hastily shot and starring largely unknown and inexperienced actors. At some points, it suffers from editing and sound mixing mishaps, though the robust storytelling makes up for the crew's lack of experience for the most part. It reads like a summer project from a student filmmaker — but to its advantage. The manicured visions of Midsommar and, more recently, Yellowjackets, have inadvertently shaped the genre to highly polished, stylized templates — leaving a gaping void for the ruggedness of Honeycomb's likeness to The Blair Witch Project to fill it up.
Long monologues and live-band interludes do tend to drag, and while the story is implicitly violent, Honeycomb never strays into explicit gore, even when it flirts with blood imagery. Despite reading as an amateur affair, Honeycomb demonstrates the feasibility of Fast's concept, especially in its moments of artful cinematography, which act as visual balladry through the use of playful colour, lighting and framing work. Its daring visual components, along with a solid plot, drive the film into legitimacy.
(Independent)Five girls, bored with the banality of young adulthood, wander off into the wilderness after discovering a mysterious cabin in which they decide to make their new home. They ditch society's rules, hatching a new set of laws to govern them — including the rule of suitable damage, which states that if one girl hurts another, the group can punish the offender with harm of equal measure. As you can imagine, it's not long before things get all Lord of the Flies, and the girls' new society and its arcane punitive structure begin to unravel.
The film itself is a clearly low-budget project, hastily shot and starring largely unknown and inexperienced actors. At some points, it suffers from editing and sound mixing mishaps, though the robust storytelling makes up for the crew's lack of experience for the most part. It reads like a summer project from a student filmmaker — but to its advantage. The manicured visions of Midsommar and, more recently, Yellowjackets, have inadvertently shaped the genre to highly polished, stylized templates — leaving a gaping void for the ruggedness of Honeycomb's likeness to The Blair Witch Project to fill it up.
Long monologues and live-band interludes do tend to drag, and while the story is implicitly violent, Honeycomb never strays into explicit gore, even when it flirts with blood imagery. Despite reading as an amateur affair, Honeycomb demonstrates the feasibility of Fast's concept, especially in its moments of artful cinematography, which act as visual balladry through the use of playful colour, lighting and framing work. Its daring visual components, along with a solid plot, drive the film into legitimacy.