Honeymoon

Honeymoon reminds me a lot of The One I Love which came out the same year. They're both about a couple who go on an isolated retreat and end up getting more than they bargained for. It's a good premise and one that promises potential, but it's entirely reliant on the execution of the mystery. Something is wrong with Bea, the wife of the recently married couple. The first night of their honeymoon, she wanders out in the middle of the night and Paul, the husband, goes out to find her naked in the woods with no memory of what happened prior. From then on she acts distant - hiding things from him, lying about trivial things - something just isn't right. And the way the movie is set up is very well done. For a good hour of the movie I was totally into it. I had no idea what the threat was and was eager to find out. Then you do find out what it is and it's quite horrifying, but you can tell the filmmakers didn't exactly know how to end the movie.

What carries Honeymoon is the acting. The two leads are excellent and have great chemistry throughout, so when the weird things start happening, you believe the husband's growing concern and the wife's pleads of innocence. And the pacing is spot on. Atmosphere is front and center from the start. The setting is a cabin in the woods, and as cliché as it may be for a horror story, it can be thoroughly effective with the right ambiance and Honeymoon delivers in that regard. The mystery itself is unraveled at a good pace as well, leaving breadcrumbs for the audience and throwing a few twists and turns along the way.

Now I'm giving the movie a lot of praise, and that's because I consider 6/10 an above-average score which is precisely what Honeymoon is - an above-average horror mystery. It's nothing revolutionary. The One I Love did a better job with this premise, but that doesn't mean Honeymoon isn't worth checking out. If you're in the mood for an engaging edge-of-your-seat thriller, you're looking in the right place.

I just watched this movie on Hulu. I had never heard of it and didn't realize it has been out awhile. The trailer looked promising! But unfortunately this one turned out to be a dud unless you like open ended movies with no closure/answers. If a movie isn't a good story answering The Who what when where why and how.... I'll pass. It would've been nice to at least be thought provoking and open for some interpretation but I saw nothing. It had potential to be a great movie but it seems like the writers fell asleep every ten minutes

Another doesn't make sense movie. We are not told the why or the how. We just see what happened somehow. The first half of the movie is fine. The second half get progressively worse until the final scene which makes no sense. It's still a good watch though if you like Rose Leslie.

I would have given this movie 8 if it had a better. honestly, I am sick and tired of horror films that build up a mystery, only to never solve the mystery. This was a promising movie. I was hooked into it. There was an intriguing mystery and clues were thrown all around.

And for what? An ending with almost NO explanation at all. This is so freaking cliche now. I am sick of horror movies doing this. We want to know why these things were going on. We do NOT want to always have to write the ending on our own. That is the screenwriter's job. But people nowadays make films without and ending that explains what was going on.

Ambiguous endings have their place, no doubt. But only when the clues that came before it are meaningful to the end. Here they are not. It was lazy and the ending invalidated the whole movie.

Continuing in my long list of movies I chose to watch from Game of Thrones actors over the last month or so, 'Honeymoon' stars the always fantastic Rose Leslie as 'Bea' the troubled half of a newlywed couple whose honeymoon certainly doesn't go as planned. First off, who thought that having your honeymoon in the woods in the middle of nowhere was a good idea? I understand the desire for privacy and the ability to be secluded from everything else in life but this plot felt avoidable if they only picked a more common destination. Alas, we have Honeymoon, the slow-building, bloody, gritty, and ambiguous horror film that doesn't quite have the payoff that the premise initially makes a promise to deliver on. But still, a more than watchable, well-acted film from director Leigh Janiak.

6.3/10