AT THE MOVIES

by Isy Jordan

Honeydew
Director: Devereux Milburn
Starring: Barbara Kingsley, Stephen D'Ambrose, Jamie Bradley, Sawyer Spielberg, Malin Barr, and more.


Strange cravings and hallucinations befall a young couple after seeking shelter in the home of an aging farmer and her peculiar son.

While we're still waiting for things to get back to normal, movies are still being released straight-to-streaming. When Honeydew landed last month, I was excited for a brand new horror film. Was it good? Yes.

And no.

Okay, here's the situation. A nice young couple are on a weekend getaway. Sam and Riley are camping out in the country and trying to reconnect since their relationship seems to be strained. They are out in the heartland because Riley is studying an infectious strain of wheat that devastated a small farming community. She's pursuing a degree, Sam's an aspiring actor studying his lines.

They are surprised in their tent by the farmer who owns the land their on and he asks them to leave. Then their car won't start so they end up walking down the road to a farmhouse, hoping to use the phone to call a towing service.

The older lady at the farm seems nice enough. She has an adult son who appears to be mentally disabled. It starts with dinner and disolves into one of the strangest horror movies this die-hard horror fan has ever seen.

Honeydew is one of those films that either people love or hate. Its cast is new to me but their performances were good. Sam is played by Sawyer Spielberg, son of the famous director. It's light on language, sexual situations, and gore. It's not that type of horror film.

The story relies heavily on psychological horror and I appreciate the simplicity of the storyline. But was it too simple? Given the intro, I expected something... more. The story starts out telling us about the strain of wheat that Riley is studying and it honestly had me looking forward to some heavy-handed wheat-inspiried insanity but that seemed to go away once the film got started. Riley asked the lady who owned the farm about it once but it got no answer. Was it the wheat that caused the entire situation? We'll never know.

Sam rehearsing lines for an audition came back once later in the film but not in a way that made sense. Was it cool in the scene where it was used? Kind of.

Our characters sink into a world with its horrors mostly in plain sight. With the exception of a cameo by Lena Dunham that I do have to give the filmmakers credit for because it was sickly brilliant. But as you learn the truth about the lady's "son" Gunni, the farmer who set them on the adventure to begin with, and the crazy old lady at the center of the terror, you almost feel like you're trapped in the "Where's Gary?" episode of Spongebob Squarepants.

The film is an hour and 46 minutes and rated R for implied sexual situations, sadism, and well, things I can't reveal here. If you enjoy more psychological horror films like M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit or Hereditary, you'll probably like this film. Just don't watch it on a day when you're really down. Opt for something more upbeat like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Scream.

Isy