’Honeycomb’ review: Dir. Avalon Fast [Fantasia]

Over the years many films have explored the world of cults. Most tell their story through someone joining one that is pre-established. It’s far rarer to find a film that looks at the origins of a cult, and how easily they can form. New director Avalon Fast’s Honeycomb focuses on exactly this, with her tale of teenage girls gone wild.

The story begins at the start of summer. A group of seniors – Willow (Sophie Bawks-Smith), Jules (Jillian Frank), Leader (Destini Stewart), Vicky (Mari Geraghty), and Millie (Rowan Wales) – have just graduated and are at a loss how to spend their final summer vacation together. Then after Willow discovers an abandoned cabin off of the beaten track in the middle of the local wilderness, an idea begins to take shape. Days later, after all being shown the location, the girls decide to move in together and form their own community of sisterhood. All is going well; the girls’ coexistence is maintained by a strict set of rules. Their harmony then starts to crack after the addition of Millie’s younger sister June (Jaris Wale), and as early friction contorts into suspicion and jealousy, actions turn nasty. 

If ever a film demonstrated the toxicity of teenage girls it would be Honeycomb. The truth that many veer away from, is that even within the closest of friendship groups at this age, there can be viciousness. It’s not just your Mean Girls, Heathers, or Jawbreaker cliques that can turn on themselves either. Even the most sickly sweet of friends can harbour resentment for each other. All those hormones swimming around inside, coupled with the pressures to grow-up, cause anxieties to arise and frictions pop up from time-to-time. Fast articulates this beautifully within Honeycomb. The girls are all clearly friends and yet each girl has their own troubles and so, as enforced as their rules are, to stop bad blood, it inevitably occurs. The little spats early on will be painfully familiar. These spats don’t lead to full blown war, but are a reflection of how friendships at this age can turn sour in an instant, and then be fine again moments later. Given the heavy focus on the teenage girl experience, Honeycomb would pair nicely with Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ The Kings of Summer, a film that followed a trio of friends who opt to make their own house to live in within the woods. 

In an effort to keep as much peace as possible, there is the establishment of a hive-like society. This comes complete with a hive mind as all the girls surrender to the rules that they have set in place. These rules are excessively extreme, but each girl is happy to follow them blindly, peer pressure forming a group cohesion. Whilst a couple of rules, such as “emptying” where each night the girls take it in turn to get any pent up frustration out of their system, sound fairly idyllic, others are not. The worst permits any girl who has been wronged to dish out ‘suitable damage’ on the perpetrator. This rule is a retooling of the old adage of an ‘eye for an eye’; the ‘victim’ is placed in charge of choosing a punishment that they feel is equal to the wrong that they were inflicted. Teenage girls are known for being highly emotional (thanks oestrogen) and so the penalties don’t often fit the crime. They begin simple enough, but soon escalate into eye-gouging and shunning. 

Clearly an indie production, Fast leans into the low budget nature of the project. Honeycomb is shot in a rough and ready documentary aesthetic, almost in a fly on the wall style. The documentary vibe is felt further by the girls’ own use of piece-to-camera pitches as they attempt to document the birth of their new society. The cinematography is all hazy sunbeams, increasing that nostalgia for the bright summers of your youth in a similar way to Richard Linkalter’s Dazed and Confused. The sound design is a fusion of gentle breezes, buzzing flies and then jarring screams and shouts. Not content to purely create this medley of noise, the volume of each audio element is occasionally manipulated. Some scenes are dialled down, whereas snippets of others are suddenly turned to maximum, alarming the viewer with its assault on the senses. A really cute touch comes during the end credits at which point Fast adds in lots of shout-outs, gratitudes, and anecdotes about the filming process. Were more movie makers to follow this example, perhaps more people would be inclined to sit them out. 

Honeycomb remains timeless. It’s never explicitly mentioned in which era it is set, and due to the repetitive nature of fashions, Honeycomb could be set in the 70’s, 90’s, or even modern day. The girls’ costuming evokes something older, but with fashion being circular, it’s hard to pin down. This ambiguity of time continues with the bassy rock heavy soundtrack, provided by the girls’ male group of friends who happen to be a band. 

With Yellowjackets fever still high, now is the perfect time for Avalon Fast’s film to arrive. Though a far more bonded and agreeable group, there are plenty of moments where you get the sense that Honeycomb is an alternate ‘Yellowjackets in the summer sun’. If nothing else, making this comparison may tempt more to give Honeycomb a chance and experience its weird wonder and strangeness for themselves. 

Honeycomb was reviewed at Fantasia International Film Festival.