Sawyer Spielberg, son of the infamous film director, Steven Spielberg, makes his feature acting debut in Honeydew. He plays Sam, an aspiring actor travelling across the country with his girlfriend Rylie (Malin Barr). After being kicked out of their tent by the owner of the land they’ve pitched on, the two are about to start the journey home when their car breaks down. With no phone reception, the pair have no choice but to continue their journey and search for help, on foot. After a while, they stumble across an out of the way farmhouse inhabited by elderly woman, Karen (Barbara Kingsley), and her son Gunni (Jamie Bradley). Karen welcomes the two in with open arms and sets about calling in help for their car woes, but insists that, due to the late hour, they must stay over. Reluctantly agreeing, the couple discover that Karen and Gunni aren’t quite who they appear to be, and as true intentions are revealed, Sam and Rylie find themselves at the centre of a waking nightmare with no means of escape.
Honeydew marks the feature directorial debut of Devereux Milburn, and as debuts go, Honeydew is certainly memorable. Early reactions have compared the film to Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and it’s easy to see where these comparisons have come from. As with Hooper’s genre classic, Milburn opts to play the story out slowly. He doesn’t rush to get to nasty stuff, deliberating building up the characters of Sam and Rylie. Horror films have a tendency to skim over the character work, meaning that the viewer often isn’t that invested in their fate. With Honeydew we do care about Sam and Rylie. They’re an interesting twosome, a pair who from one scene to another look either madly in love, or on the verge of break-up. It’s a volatile mix, but one that serves what comes later beautifully. Milburn, like Hooper, decides to keep the ‘scary’ stuff confined to the latter half of the film. In order to keep the viewer engaged, Milburn once again offers a spotlight on characters, this time the strange pairing of Karen and Gunni, slowly layering elements of the bizarre and kooky upon them. The result – a very unsettled audience.
This slow, drawn out, and deliberate build-up occasionally feels a little too elongated and slightly tedious, but all this is forgotten when we reach the big reveal. Once into this section, all of Milburn’s groundwork begins to pay off, and from here events escalate quickly. We’ll keep details light as to what exactly Sam and Rylie have to endure, but it’s certainly the type of ordeal that will stick in your mind. It’s a truly terrible brand of torture, and although not strictly one hundred percent original, manages to land a gut-punch thanks to all that character work. Without giving any spoilers, Honeydew manages to claim the title for darkest ending of the decade; the final scenes are most definitely set to haunt the dreams of all that witness them.
Visually, Milburn draws comparisons with Hooper’s work, with Honeydew channelling The Texas Chain Saw Massacre aesthetically. It’s not all an ode to Hooper though, as elements of Midsommar, and even The X-Files episode, ‘Home’, are woven into the frames. All combine to create something that is a familiar looking horror style, but with Milburn adding his own flourish with several split screen sequences. It’s been years since split-screen was a cinematic plot device, the last time really being in the heights of 24’s fame, but it’s a technique that seems to be making a return. Several other FrightFest offerings have also used the technique, but Milburn pulls it off better than some of his counterparts.
Restrained with its use of gore, Honeydew is a thinking-person’s horror film. Rather than fill the screen with buckets of blood and guts, Milburn holds back and encourages the viewer to fill in the gaps between what is and isn’t seen. Imagination is often worse than the real thing, and with the pointers given in Honeydew, the imagination runs rampant and creates some rather icky images.
As debuts go, Honeydew sets Milburn out as an interesting and modern voice, one that respects the institutional conventions within which they are playing, but who still seeks to strike out alone to add their own stamp. These intentions pay off, and Honeydew is sure to be spoken about for years to come. The ending itself is enough to see it placed into the horror hall of fame, as once you have seen it, you’ll never forget it.
Honeydew was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest Halloween.
Honeydew
Summary
A thoughtful and deliberate film that, whilst having echoes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Midsommar, is very much its own macabre tale, and one that won’t easily be forgotten.
