Babes in the horrific Woods.
XYZ Films’ “Lovely, Dark, and Deep” is another independent supernatural horror film to come out this month after Bleecker Street’s “Out of Darkness.” They both take place outside in the woods and they both have heroines trying to make sense out of the horrors that emerge. I can imagine how noisy and obvious they probably would have been if they were part of “The Conjuring” universe, but I hate to imagine that.
However, last summer, the Australian horror film “Talk to Me” has developed a fanbase and became a big hit, thus making the targeted audience a lot smarter than what commercialism would see them as. “Lovely, Dark, and Deep” is streaming on YouTube, and if you’re into this particular horror genre without all those horror movie cliches, then it’s worth your rental money. I would suggest you rent it before you buy it, due to the price difference.
Georgina Campbell, who found horror success with “Barbarian” two years ago, has another leading role of the genre as Lennon, a young back country ranger with a new job in a national park, where previous rangers and civilians have disappeared. And she’s also haunted by the disappearance of her younger sister Jenny.
Her boss Zhang (Wai Ching Ho) gives the new recruits information about how cell phone towers are not in park, and there’s no electricity in the back country ranger stations. Her message is: “Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories, kill nothing but time.” Of course, I think there’s going to be more than footprints left behind, and the memories are sure going to stick to you.
Lennon tries to solve the mystery within her past, while finding various lost strangers in the woods. They seem like crazy people haunted by demons, especially when one of them has blood on their legs, and when they ask her: “Are you real?.” Eventually, she ends up in some kind of reality, where she seems like a ghost to a kind English couple (Mick Greer and Celia Williams) on holiday, although I suppose the movie doesn’t have the budget to make her hand go through them like one.
At times, it’s difficult to understand what is going on in her new reality (that is if we can really call it a reality), but then again, we’re interested in the main heroine and her troubles, and we can identify with them. At this very moment, Campbell is able to thrive within the genre and play strong, young women who don’t expect to be in Hellish episodes. I like to say being trapped in a basement with a freak of nature is one episode, and being trapped in a dimension in the woods is another. It doesn’t matter how we would describe them; it’s matters in the atmosphere and narrative by writer/director Teresa Sutherland.
The cinematography by Rui Poças, the score composed by Shida Shahibi, and the editing by Alexandra Amick all make the forest look fresh and life-giving, and even in the daytime, the chills give you goosebumps. I already developed them once I got absorbed into the film, especially when the camera angles make the mountains turn upside down. You know something freaky and otherworldly is going to take place. I’m surprised Ari Aster had nothing to do with this project.
Streaming On Demand