Dark Nature

I had never actually heard about this 2022 horror movie "Dark Nature" prior to sitting down in 2023 and watching it. All that I knew here was that it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen. And thus, of course I opted to give it a viewing.

Writers Berkley Brady and Tim Cairo put together a rather bland storyline. Sure, there were some nice enough aspects in the movie here and there throughout the course of the 85 minutes that the movie ran for. But ultimately, I have to say that the storyline in the movie felt rather pointless and without any actual meaningful contents. And that made it a somewhat dull viewing experience.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but they actresses and actors put on fair enough performances, though they had only so much to work with in terms of script and storyline.

Visually then "Dark Nature" was adequate. It was a not a movie that made a whole lot use of special effects to bring its storyline to the screen. The creature design was interesting enough, though I have honestly no clue as to what that creature was supposed to be.

Suitable for a single viewing, "Dark Nature" wasn't really all that impressive. And it is not a movie that I will be recommending for horror fans to rush out and get to watch. Nor is it a movie that I will ever pick up and watch a second time.

My rating of director Berkley Brady's 2022 movie lands on a four out of ten stars.

"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.

A trauma therapy group follows their quack doctor into the Canadian wilderness on a survivalist excursion for which none of them are remotely qualified. It's unclear what the point of the excursion is supposed to be since the doctor's explanations are pop psychobabble gibberish. The characters' lack of preparedness or an objective helps explain their subsequent bickering, complaining and idiotic decisions; but it also makes them frustratingly unsympathetic. Suffice it to say the gang of intrepid idiots soon find themselves isolated and stalked by a standard horror trope until the rushed and inevitable finale. The Ritual (2017) wasn't great but it did essentially the same thing first, better and with more relatable characters.

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.

After seeing the low rating for this movie I was really surprised how much I liked it. I generally enjoy horror movies set in the wilderness and so I definitely had to check this one out. My expectations were rather low because of the rating but I went in with an open mind and by the end I was genuinely surprised.

The movie starts off by introducing us to our main character and her trauma induced by her ex and while I am actually tired of this whole trauma theme because it's really overused in horror, I think that in this case it made sense and I was not turned off by it.

After introducing us to the rest of the cast, our lead named Joy played by Hannah Emily Anderson keeps hearing her ex and even starts seeing him in the woods. She is sure that he is following them but other group members also see and hear things so the question is: Are they really followed by somebody or something? Honestly the movie really takes it's time before something happens and during that time you have to endure these characters talking about their past and getting to know each other. But towards the third act the movie really picks up momentum and goes into a direction I did not really expect. They are some great makeup effects and a decent amount of gore that I really didn't anticipate. While there are some character decisions that I didn't understand and probably only were made to serve the plot I enjoyed this movie overall and I think this low rating is not justified. Lower your expectations and give this one a try if you like horror movies set in the wildness. [6,5/10]