Dark Nature

"Dark Nature" is a Canadian horror film written and directed by Berkley Brady in her directorial debut. The film stars Hannah Emily Anderson, Helen Belay, Madison Walsh, Roseanne Supernault, and Kyra Harper all of which you probably never heard of.

The plot revolves around Joy, who is recovering from an abusive relationship. She joins her friend's therapy group on an isolated mountainous retreat. Led by a doctor with experimental methods, the group is soon forced to confront a monstrous entity and since this is a no-spoiler review this is the story in a nutshell.

I would say as a low-budget first attempt, "Dark Nature" has some good things going for it. The actors doing a good job of looking scared, especially towards the end of the movie, and there is a good plot progression. Unfortunately due to low-budget filming, cringe dialogue, overuse of flashbacks and an anticlimactic ending it is really loses a lot of points in my book.

The opening scene is surprisingly the worst offender in this entire movie, which is odd, since it should be the easiest one to film, inside an apartment (or a motel room or some sorts??) the dialogue is cringe and the camera work is horrendous. However it gets better later on and becomes somewhat watchable.

Again, without any major special effects, no CGI and limited number of cameras, Brady manages to product a reasonable film minus some dubious editing cuts. However I felt the ending could use a closure epilogue. It's not that it ends on a note where "viewers can figure it out", it just ends without a closure to the main character Joy. The movie is fairly short (sub 90 mins) so I think a 3-4 minute epilogue could do this film a lot of good and maybe even elevate my score from a 4 to a 5.

Considering everything this is one of those not fully-baked but watchable soft thrillers. My exact score is 44 / 100.

Dark Nature as a horror movie is not very special .There are interactions and scenes such as flashbacks that aren't timed well. There's an unsettled nature in story flow, an unhealthy tension. Focussing too much on the main antagonist leave the story crawling in the midst of it's runtime. However the rich visuals of mountainous forests is a plus, But Audio is not so much. What the movie does best is giving shape and colour to how trauma work it's slowness at the start picture the recess and the second half reemergence of trauma, that's clever work. Performances are neat. Dark Nature's creativity is what makes it worth.

This was an interesting mix of folk horror and creature feature as an almost cautionary tale about facing your demons and overcoming past traumas. It had some solid potential however because of some missteps in execution, landed pretty middle of the road for me.

I thought the plot/concept was really interesting and was a foundation for something relatively different and pretty cool. They ended up negating a lot of their spook factor and intrigue by showing the "antagonist" like... WAY early and pretty much in full form. 25% of the time it was shown it looked creepy and dope. The other 75% it looked quite silly and drew me out of the moment. Regardless, there was still some pretty dope execution of sfx/makeup throughout.

The two lead best friends were quite good and really kept me in the moment and engaged. The doctor was good and everyone else was on the not so convincing side.

I do think they could have beefed up the story a bit more. Felt a little bit like a very long proof of concept. Despite this, as a whole I think this was pretty successful and certainly not a waste of time. Would recommend.

Looking for a movie, and my husband wanted to skip this one because of the low IMDB rating. I wanted to give it a chance, and I'm glad I did.

Dark Nature is a slow boil, but it pays off. No use of CGI or any over-the-top special effects. It's s very physical movie, and I could feel the struggle the characters were going through. Camping in the Rockies is a great adventure, but one wrong move can mean life or death, and I could feel the heart-pounding fear in each character.

I knew absolutely nothing about this movie, and I suggest other viewers do the same. Everything was a surprise, and that added an extra chill.

As I said, slow boil, and then takes off.

This doesn't really succeed in any of the points it is trying to make.

It is not a good drama, because characters are not really explored.

It is not a good horror, because the creators didn't learn properly from 'Descent'.

It's obviously had potential, but eventually fell flat.

Even though creature is explained in bits and pieces, it's not really a good explanation.

The buildup is weak.

Indeed, the whole thing feels a bit pointless.

Overall, the movie is pretty simple and straightforward, in case you wondering to watch it or not, I must say that there are no interesting turns or unexpected occurrences.

I cannot say I enjoyed it. I was waiting for something to happen, waiting for movie to bloom, but it does not live up to any good expectations.

The basics are there, you can watch it before falling asleep, surely, but it won't be a movie to remember.