Movies

Travis Stevens’ Latest Is A Wild, If Somewhat Incoherent, Horror-Show

December 11, 2022

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Marrying two of probably the most thrilling voices in modern horror — author/director Travis Stevens and star Josh Ruben (himself an completed director) — Shudder’s “A Wounded Fawn” is a grainy, phantasmagoric trek into the woods and into the recesses of a serial killer’s thoughts. Sometimes feeling like two competing aesthetics preventing for primacy, “A Wounded Fawn” will not be as completed or coherent as Stevens’ and Ruben’s earlier movies. But it’s a reasonably wild journey.

Beginning by honing in on Ruben’s Bruce, an artwork auctioneer who can barely comprise his pent-up rage in opposition to girls, the movie begins with a brutal kill that units the tone for a lean, if considerably spinoff, woman-in-peril movie. That lady can be Meredith (Sarah Lind), who has simply began courting Bruce and, regardless of her higher judgment, agrees to a weekend in a distant cabin with him.

Once arriving — and discovering an costly greek statue that her work lately appraised — Meredith begins to assume one thing is amiss. Until this level, “A Wounded Fawn” might be madlibbed collectively by any horror viewer, with Stevens’ grainy cinematography and Ruben’s eccentric efficiency virtually feeling like riffs on an overextended style. But Meredith is far more clever than a typical ultimate lady, and the movie isn’t precisely concerned about seeing this narrative completely by means of. Instead, the movie is cut up into two distinct sections.

The first performs out as a grindhouse-adjacent tackle a girl trapped alone with a potential killer as Stevens ratchets up the stress on the drive to the cabin and the darkish woods surrounding the impersonal house. Meredith is aware of one thing is unsuitable, always checking in together with her mates, however she additionally ascribes these emotions to the oddness of early courting.

The second half, nonetheless, embraces the madness, riffing on Greek mythology and psychedelics to memorable, if absurd, outcomes. As Bruce exhibits his true character and Meredith escapes into the woods, “A Wounded Fawn” strikes away from its lean B-movie origins and turns in the direction of Lovecraftian horror.

If the film considerably devolves into nonsensical imagery and abandons its plot on this latter portion, Stevens however maintains an attention-grabbing tonal management, subjectively putting the viewer in Bruce’s viewpoint as exterior forces take over his physique and thoughts. As Bruce circles by means of the woods searching for Meredith, he’s confronted by a number of surreal photographs and physique horror as pagan creatures literalize his inside psychosis.

It all offers off the sensation of a low-budget movie crew taking mushrooms and seeing what occurs, which appears to be the purpose. It’s humorous, a little bit nightmarish, and possibly has an allegorical that means, although that half is obscured by the onslaught of photographs that don’t appear totally realized and even thought by means of.

“A Wounded Fawn” can be a lot much less constant than Stevens’ haunted-house riff in “Girl on the Third Floor” or the Giallo-infused comedy of “Jakob’s Wife.” That’s undoubtedly purposeful, as Stevens lets his freak flag fly with each shot within the ultimate thirty minutes to messy however memorable outcomes (together with a hysterical end-credit scene).

But, greater than something, “A Wounded Fawn” showcases Stevens’ curiosity in smashing collectively two distinct horror kinds in the identical movie. It doesn’t all the time work, but it surely additional proves that Stevens (and Ruben) are persistently attention-grabbing filmmakers, even once they stumble. [B-]

Travis Stevens’ Latest Is A Wild, If Somewhat Incoherent, Horror-Show

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