Honeyspider

This was a long awaited throwback Halloween Horror Thriller, loved it's slow paced creepy story… I can see this becoming a cult classic!, a sort of Halloween must watch every year movie… Although it's a very slow burning movie, it keeps you hooked with it's spooky weirdness and unravelling story… It's worth the wait! to get to a well delivered and unsuspecting ending… The sound track to this movie was just amazing, well fitting and just made the movie fresh… The acting was superb from newcomer Mariah Brown playing lead role as Jackie Blue on her wonting quiet birthday, "well you can want"… I'm not getting into the plot with this as all you need to know is in the synopsis above, i won't give you any spoilers… But i will say this, it's a must for any Horror "low budget" movie lover, you need this in the collection, and dig it out every year on Hallows eve…...

I was fortunate enough to see the world premiere of this film in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Parts of the film were shot at the local, historic Gem Theatre, and it features prominently in the film. The Gem Theatre held the premiere, as a double feature with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. As much as I adore Night of the Living Dead, I had more fun watching Honeyspider. It was fresh, highly ambitious, infectious, mysterious, and genuinely frightening at times. As an independent author and wannabe filmmaker myself, I'm always impressed at what independent filmmakers can accomplish with such a small budget. A lot of times, the smaller budget allows for an increase in creativity and devotion to a project, and Honeyspider is oozing around the edges with creativity and devoted participants.

The film begins on a slow zoom in on our beautiful leading lady. Mariah Brown plays Jackie Blue, a college student celebrating her 21st birthday on the most glorious day of the year, Halloween. She works at the local movie theatre, has eccentric friends (two of whom are appreciably dressed as Columbia and Magenta from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is ironic, as I wore a Rocky Horror shirt to the premiere!), has to deal with a creepy professor, and has parents who don't really seem to care. Frank Aard plays Professor Lynch, the aforementioned creepy professor, who may be more diabolical than the viewer can imagine. As Jackie goes about her evening, tarantulas begin showing up, tormenting her.

Setting the film in the late '80s was a very welcome touch, as I abhor a lot of modern technologies. If the characters were all playing on their current phones, tablets, etc. throughout the film, in twenty years, it would end up being a dated work, like plenty of other films through the ages. The filmmakers wisely set it in the '80s, thereby immediately stamping it as a curiosity piece, allowing the true characters and plot to unfold in a more universal manner. The slow pacing of the film is right up my alley. The best horror films build and build with suspense, thoroughly developing the characters, rather than relying on cheap scares. Take The Exorcist and The Shining, for example. They are based in reality, developing characters and a world which absorb the viewer. Honeyspider takes a page from that book, building a lead character and her world on a firm, believable foundation. Then, when the climax comes, it's that much more unsettling and terrifying.

Another facet of this film that I adored was the music and sound design. Some of the sound design felt as though the filmmakers overdosed on David Lynch films before working on this project. Given the fact that the creepy professor's name is Lynch, that doesn't seem like a far-fetched possibility. The music is even one of the first scares in the film. After the first scene, the lead character starts walking back to her dorm, calmly, quietly. Suddenly, the image freezes, the title card appears, and the music strikes a boisterous, sinister chord that jolts the viewer and chills him to the core.

What makes Honeyspider so smart, though, is the fact that it never takes itself too seriously. The slow pacing and high ambition never get in the way of the tremendous level of fun the film instills. This is most evident in the movie-within-the-movie. As stated before, Jackie works at a movie theatre. The theatre is showing a film titled, Sleepover Slaughterhouse Part III. This is where I really fell in love with the film. Honeyspider is shot in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The Sleepover Slaughterhouse Part III segments change to a standard 1.33:1 aspect ratio. I adore whenever a film uses varying aspect ratios to tell its story. Woodstock, Life of Pi, and The Grand Budapest Hotel all use this technique, and I love it. The opening credits of Sleepover Slaughterhouse Part III are a scream, not only because of the ridiculously campy faux cast and crew, but because they are fashioned after another famous, ridiculous Part III of a slasher series starring a certain hockey mask wearing individual. Sleepover Slaughterhouse Part III is every horror stereotype Honeyspider is not. This is how the filmmakers allowed themselves to be fun and crazy amidst the serious effort put forward in the rest of the film.

My only qualm with seeing the first screening of a film in theatres is that I have to way so much longer for a home video release. I hope this film makes its way onto the home video market quite soon because I want to show it to everyone I know. Honeyspider is a self-proclaimed cult film, and I hate the fact that I didn't "Join the Cult" on the film's website early enough, so I could have gotten a shirt. I am proud to be a part of the Honeyspider cult. I think it's time to retire the V for Vendetta symbol I've been drawing random places, for I have found a new symbol.

I wanted to like Honeyspider, I really did. I like independent horror films that don't rely on jump scares and buckets of blood and gore. I thought the premise to this sounded interesting and so I thought that I would give it a watch. That was my first mistake. To be honest, I found it hard to follow, the story was disjointed, the acting was terrible. The music wasn't too bad and mercifully the film avoided the bullied teen trope. But the movie was just...well...not that good. It had. It looked as thought it was shot for a film student project. I can respect what they were trying to do, but the filmmakers need to really improve their craft and hire better actors.

Horror films aren't exactly what I go to the movies for. For one reason or another, most don't do it for me.

Honeyspider is one of two films that fall into the Horror genre that I can recommend to literally anyone.

I didn't expect to like it as much as I do. A few friends of mine wanted to watch it, and for the first few minutes, I didn't pay much attention. But as the movie progressed, I became more and more immersed in it. It was like I was watching what every horror film should be. Considering production budgets, the film is a technical masterwork. Add in the entrancing and open-ended story, and just the general genre-savviness of the creators, and you have an instant Halloween classic.

This isn't a movie that you watch and then go back to the rest of your day. This is a movie you watch, then watch again, then have a conversation with the people who made it on Twitter, and then write a review of while watching it for a third time. I can't express how finely tuned an instrument this film is.

If you haven't seen it yet, you need to be watching it.

I'm always excited for Halloween horror films and 'Honeyspider' is one of the best new ones to come around in awhile. The first thing that struck me about the film was the soundtrack. And not just the known songs, but the overall backing music and intro song. For a very small film, the soundtrack was effectively creepy.

Jackie is trying to have a quiet Halloween birthday, but her night takes a terrifying turn when she sees a mysterious symbol on the wall in her dorm shower, she receives a strange ring and huge spiders start appearing out of nowhere. Murder on the big screen during the horrorthon blends with real life slashing adds up to a lot of bloody mayhem and dead spiders.

The style in which the film is shot creates an incredibly effective eerie and surreal atmosphere. Combining that with the music, and 'Honeyspider' is one of the creepiest movies I've seen in the past year. Reminiscent of horror classics such as 'Halloween', and 'Rosemary's Baby', and Stanley Kubrick in terms of atmosphere, the film also reminded me of Ti West's 'House of the Devil', which is a favorite of mine. I especially enjoyed the end of the film, which was executed in an artistic way. The Smashing Pumpkins song 'Honeyspider,' which the film was inspired by, plays over the last scene and wrapped up the film perfectly.

Mariah Brown was excellent as the confused Jackie Blue. Frank Aard ('April Fool's Day' remake) was straight up creepy as hell. Director Josh Hasty was clearly inspired by his passion for the genre and did an amazing job with this film. I really hope to see more of his work in the future. Horror fans looking for that classic horror vibe that many of today's films have lost need to check out 'Honeyspider.' It's one of those films you will want to watch every year on Halloween.

Originally Posted on Horrornewsnetwork.net

http://horrornewsnetwork.net/articles/11911-honeyspider-review? Itemid=101