Honeymoon is a 2014 American science fiction horror film directed by Leigh Janiak (her feature film debut) from a screenplay co-written with Phil Graziadei.
It stars Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway as a newly-married couple whose honeymoon ends up being ruined by a series of strange events.
The movie had its world premiere on March 7, 2014 at South by Southwest. It should not be confused with the 2015 Mexican horror thriller Honeymoon, directed by Diego Cohen.
Opening plot:
Bea (Rose Leslie) and Paul (Harry Treadaway) are newly married and off to have a romantic honeymoon in a rustic cabin set in a secluded forest.
During their stay there, they go to a small restaurant where Will, the owner, initially acts hostile and asks them to leave, but later calms down, realizing he was Bea’s childhood friend. Will’s wife then comes in, acting strangely and saying they need to get away.
Afterwards, everything goes normally until their wedded bliss is cut short when Bea goes missing. Paul finds her naked and disoriented in the woods with no evidence as to how she got there or why she was there in the first place. He takes her back to the cabin, where she claims she was sleepwalking due to stress, and tells him to make nothing of it.
As time passes, Bea’s behavior becomes increasingly distant and strange. At first, Paul blames Bea’s strange behaviour on some encounter with Will, but soon he realizes there’s more going on…
Reviews:
“Janiak demonstrates some wonderfully confident direction for a first-timer, utilizing space, sound design and two very good lead actors as her tools to slowly amplify the tension and mess with your head. The situations she present before the discovery of Bea in the woods and after ring true and Paul’s reactions are justified, making it all the easier for the us to be affected by the grotesqueries that await in the latter half of the film.” Ryan Turek, ComingSoon.net
“The story comes first and foremost, and it’s the story that empowers the scares, not special effects, an escalating score or the boogeyman popping into frame from nowhere. To be succinct, Honeymoon is a beautifully crafted mystery that culminates in an unforgiving but not offensive finale.” Matt Molgaard, Horrorfreak News
“Janiak does an admirable job of keeping the audience off guard without letting things feel manipulated. She is obviously a student of horror, but uses this to know what not to do, just as much as what works. But don’t be scared away by thinking this is a kind of movie like Cabin in the Woods that riffs on the tropes of the horror genre. Honeymoon is very much its own beast; a good story, excellently told, and very, very scary.” Ryland Aldrich, Screen Anarchy
Main cast and characters:
- Rose Leslie as Bea
- Harry Treadaway as Paul
- Ben Huber as Will
- Hanna Brown as Annie
Filming locations:
North Carolina, USA
