From Bloody Disgusting and Dark Star Pictures, deranged backwoods horror movie Honeydew marks the feature debut by Devereux Milburn. It follows a young couple (Sawyer Spielberg and Malin Barr) as they’re forced to seek shelter in an aging farmer’s home (Barbara Kingsley) with her strange son. Tensions between the couple mount as weird food cravings and hallucinations kick in, along with realizing that their host may not be as kind as she appears.
Honeydew unsettles straight off the bat with ominous signs that something is exceptionally off about the locals. In horror, the line between civilization and perilous backwoods terror can be razor-thin. Protagonists set out for a weekend getaway in nature, only to encounter backwoods inhabitants with murder on their minds. Some take it a step further, with the antagonists aiming to make their prey their next meal. Its survival horror dialed up to an intense degree.
Honeydew releases on VOD and Digital HD on April 13, 2021. In celebration, we look back at eight of horror’s creepiest backwoods nightmares.
Jug Face
Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter) lives in a rural backwoods community that worships a mysterious pit with healing powers. They regularly sacrifice one of their own to the hole, decided upon by whoever’s face Dawai (Sean Bridgers) sculpts onto a jug. When Ada discovers her face on Dawai’s latest jug, she hides it to avoid her sacrifice. In retaliation, the entity within the pit lashes out in anger, causing a domino effect of tragedy. This low-budget indie is moody and dour. Its strong performances carry it, but there’s plenty of blood, too. When many horror movies present their backwoods locals as inbred mutants, Jug Face dares to make them relatively normal and relatable.
Just Before Dawn
Five young people trek into the mountainous backwoods of Oregon to find rural property one of them has just inherited, despite being warned to stay away by the forest ranger. They should have listened as they find themselves stalked and hunted by a psychopath. Just Before Dawn may sound familiar to countless slashers, but its execution sets it apart. Directed by Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Satan’s Little Helper), this slasher gives a new twist to the standard slasher archetypes. More thrillingly, it holds a few nasty tricks up its sleeves for its killer reveal and final confrontation.
Eden Lake
Jenny (Kelly Reilly) and Steve (Michael Fassbender) plan a romantic camping trip away in the countryside. Relaxation and passion quickly give way to violence instead when a group of vicious teens encroaches. A brutal night unfolds that will leave you devastated and quite possibly angry. Eden Lake challenges the preconceived perceptions of backwoods horror; the villains aren’t mutants or hillbillies. They’re ruthless teens, and the bitter ending signals that apples don’t fall far from the tree.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End
The first film established the inbred cannibal family that slays those venturing into their back wooded territory. For this sequel, director Joe Lynch ramps up the gore with glee. This time, it’s a group of reality show contestants that run afoul of the inbred clan. Much like Honeydew, food plays a prominent role here. At least it does in one unforgettable dinner scene. The poor Final Girl here gets tied down to a chair and force-fed human flesh; it’s over the top and icky in the best way.
Motel Hell
“It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent Fritters.” In this fun horror-comedy, a friendly farmer and his sister kidnap travelers, bury them alive up to their necks and then harvest them for creating their famous smoked meats. It’s a pitch-black comedy unafraid to get weird, introducing a new, wacky twist to cannibalistic horror. A loving riff on the classics, like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Motel Hell forges its own silly path that will leave you almost rooting for the bad guys. Almost.
The Hills Have Eyes
The remake doesn’t deviate much from Wes Craven’s 1977 original, but for sheer intensity, it wins out. Trading forest lands for a scorching desert, a road-tripping family must fight for their lives when they encounter a savage clan in the middle of nowhere. In director Alexandre Aja and writer Gregory Levasseur’s hands, their version of The Hills Have Eyes is an onslaught of tense violence and the pacing is much faster. The cannibal family is also much more monstrous.
Calvaire
An entertainer heads home for the holidays, but a vehicle breakdown in the middle of nowhere leaves him vulnerable to strange backwoods residents. Borrowing similar visual cues from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, this twisty tale features a bizarre dinner scene. Its lead gets bound to a chair and forced to dine with the strange town inhabitants with whom he’s unwittingly crossed paths. Unlike Sally Hardesty, though, poor Marc has been subjected to his captors’ torture for much longer, building up to a Christmas dinner overrun by pure insanity. In a scene that feels like Deliverance meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, you’ll never look at pigs or Christmas dinner the same way again. It’s gruesome, bleak, and downright absurd.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Tobe Hooper set the bar high with this stone-cold classic. It happens to feature one of the most influential dinner scenes in horror. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her brother, and their friends take a road trip to visit her grandfather’s grave in Texas. While strolling down memory lane, the group falls prey to a family of cannibalistic psychopaths. Trade the woods for rural flatlands, but the strange locals’ scenario still applies. Hooper infuses his disturbing debut with some twisted humor, most noticeably at the dinner scene that sees poor Sally get tortured. For most, thanks to Leatherface, it’s too disturbing to be funny.
Get acquainted with the neighbors in Honeydew on VOD and Digital on April 13, 2021.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/sponsored/3658329/honeydew-8-creepiest-backwoods-nightmares-horror/
No comments:
Post a Comment