- Director: Avalon Fast
- Writer: Avalon Fast, Emmett Roiko
- Stars: Sophie Bawks-Smith, Jillian Frank, Mari Geraghty, Henri Gillespi, Destini Stewart, Jaris Wales, Rowan Wales
Review
Playing as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival 2022, Honeycomb is an exercise in DIY film making. You may roll your eyes at that statement but this DIY film has something intangible about it. A mood? A feeling? The film has a lo-fi vibe to it, something that gives you the memories of summers gone by but with a very menacing under current.
Five girls decide to say ‘fuck it’ and literally go off grid for the summer and maybe longer. Eschewing their parents, boyfriends (when it suits) and anything else in their lives that was weighing them down. After finding an abandoned house in a meadow, the girls take up residence, essentially living in a commune, taking drugs and doing anything else that they desire. It isnt long before they start to impose their own societal rules… and things break down, in the worst of ways.
Avalon Fast directs this with a really interesting eye. The camera is static a lot of the time and almost always no character is centred in the frame, always slightly off. It lends the film a bit more of cinema verite feel and at times it feels like we are watching something that we weren’t meant to see. The little editing skips and heavy drone of the soundtrack adds more layers to an already disconcerting experience.
The acting is patchy but it always gives the film a little more credibility as a slice of life. However, everyone still does well, keeping the same tone and timbre to match the film.
Impending doom and Folk Horror go hand in hand and whilst the film is more ethereal dread than outright terror, the emerging predilections of the young women stick with you the more think about their action and rules, everyone but them can see where this leads, indeed doom is just one more heinous act away.
Honeycomb is a great example of talented individuals working to their strengths within a budget. It’s a strong debut film and I would love to see what comes next.
Ryan Morrissey-Smith | Twitter: @TigersMS78
haddonfieldhorror.com 
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