A Wounded Fawn

I had no idea of what was going on after the halfway point in this film.

The first act was great. Nice premise, great acting, good environment, and setting up to be quite the thriller.

The second act however goes completely off the rails. I'm not sure what they were thinking. It turns into a 1970s psychological drama and you can't determine what is real and what is not.

This is one of those films I wish they had tested with audiences before completing the entire thing because I'm confident most who watched it were equally confused by the end.

What was the purpose of the owl? How did these people come to life?

Travis Stevens' A Wounded Fawn is undoubtedly several notches above his Girl on the Third Floor. The 16mm visual style and gruesome-looking special effects are notable in a film with a straightforward Act One and a twisted Act Two. Art is a key factor in the film, and its finer layers are heavily soaked in it. The plot is simple: an art-obsessed serial-killer (slash thief) is seeking his next target, an art authenticator. But what begins as a slasher with a sprinkling of Greek mythology moves into a much darker, Hell Raiser-esque space, delving deep into surrealism, compounded by a supernatural recompense.

The surprise element here is whether it's the killer's mind playing games with him (after he gets hit in the head) or if he's really in a purgatory-like place where he's being psychologically tortured as punishment for the deadly sins he's committed. What also works are the two lead performances. Both Sarah Lind (as Meredith) and Josh Ruben (as Bruce) are pretty effective. While the film loses a little momentum in Act Two, the much-talked-about end credits sequence is a winner (akin to Pearl), both from the perspectives of storytelling and performances.

If you are looking for an art-drama- Ancient Greek horror, this is your movie! Maybe you will like it, maybe not, but still, it's original as it gets.

Even if i was not a Greek, i would still like it. There is a 70's aesthetic, great cinematography, it's a stylish and "sophisticated" movie but its not pretentious or artsy in a bad way. I have watched many "style over substance" movies, this is not one of them. But if you prefer your horror movie to be more straightforward, scarier or grittier, maybe you won't like this one. First part is intense though, more "traditional horror". But the second part is something else. It gets crazy, weird, bizarre, original and creative, paranoid, like a hallucination.

Josh Ruben's acting seems kinda awkward but it's exactly as the director asked from him. At least, i think so. In a way, this weird acting fits perfectly in this weird movie. Lind is great, too.

I am not saying that it's a perfect movie. There is a thin line between originality and ridiculousness, and balancing in this line, is difficult. There are many people that won't like it because they will find it nonsensical, ridiculous, artsy. I can see why this is polarising. As i said, it's not an easy balance. In my opinion though, this movie succeed. And there is the most strange/unexpected ending i have watched recently, but i like it too. In any case, it is satisfying.

Poor old Bruce makes the mistake of imbibing an extremely strong hallucinogen before his third slaying of a woman that leads to him being visited by three ghosts, two of which have been fermenting their frustrations at losing their lives in air tight barrels buried in the ground. Unfortunately for Bruce, whatever he's taken isn't wearing off quickly which puts him at somewhat of a disadvantage, similar to the predicament placed upon the dead women. As you can imagine, there's some pain to be inflicted, not only on Bruce, but also the viewer as you endure a torturous display of meaninglessness that certainly won't act as a deterrent to any up and coming serial killers (if I'm honest).

When I stumbled upon the 2022 horror movie "A Wounded Fawn" here in 2024, I had never actually heard about it. But I will say that I was initially intrigued by the movie's synopsis. Plus, the fact that it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, also helped to make me sit down and watch it.

Writers Nathan Faudree and Travis Stevens, with the latter also directing the movie, put together a fair enough script and storyline. It was pretty straightforward, if actually not somewhat generic and predictable. But the added elements of supernatural horror definitely helped to spruce up the movie. It was an adequate movie, but nothing outstanding really.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but I will say that leading actress Sarah Lind (playing Meredith Tanning) and leading actor Josh Ruben (playing Bruce Ernst) put on good performances and carried the movie quite nicely.

Visually then "A Wounded Fawn" was okay. It was not a movie that made use of an abundance of special effects or CGI, not that it really required such. Whatever effects were in the movie were fairly okay, and helped to promote whatever they were intended to do, so that means it was effective.

Director Travis Stevens makes use of some dark imagery throughout the course of the movie, especially in the last quarter of the movie, which adds something unique to the movie. And the costumes with the masks and the wardrobes definitely added a layer of oddity to the movie.

Watchable for what it was, however "A Wounded Fawn" is hardly a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time. If it worth sitting down and watching it, if you are an avid horror fan.

My rating of "A Wounded Fawn" lands on a five out of ten stars.