Review of Honeymoon (2014) by Jesse O — 14 Feb 2015

This is an examination of the nature of modern marriage disguised as a horror film. I'm not gonna suggest that this is a horror movie that will revitalize the genre. Or renew someone's faith in how clever and subversive horror movies can be, but it's pretty damn good at building up a suspenseful story with enough guesswork to keep you intrigued from beginning to end.

There's a bit of a sci-fi twist in there, but it's not overbearing, the film mostly sticks to horror and it does a damn good job at creating this story of this marriage that's falling apart based on a pretty innocuous incident one night.

This isn't a horror movie that will scare you, it's not that type of film at all. It's the type of horror film that slowly builds up the suspense, building the tension, and seeing how a seemingly normal woman starts to fall apart and forget who she is and who she's married to.

This would all be for naught if the leads weren't up to snuff. And, thankfully, Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway have excellent chemistry with each other and they do a great job at carrying the film.

Because, while the film does a good job at building up tension, it all rests on the dialogue and the acting of the leads. There's only one gory moment and it's part of the climax, so they only leave it for when it's absolutely necessary, it's part of the narrative and it's start of the reveal of what's going on with Bea.

So, essentially, this movie rests on the dialogue and the chemistry between the leads and they do a great job here. Because of that lack of gore or typical scares, I think a lot of people won't enjoy this film.

It's normal to expect, horror films that think outside the box are usually not as popular as other, more simplistic ones. Not that there's anything wrong with simple horror films, some of which I enjoy as well, it's just the way it is.

But this is still a damn good movie that I would recommend if you appreciate good and inventive horror films. It's not a movie that can be recommended to just anybody, but I thought it was quite good indeed.