Shudder Saturday: A Wounded Fawn (2022)

It can be tricky when you decide to rave about a new horror movie, because there are times when it seems that a rave-worthy entry in the genre seems to come along every few weeks. We horror fans are often spoiled, despite how people may view different years and decades as particularly fertile or fallow ground, and there's often the danger of hyperbole to navigate around.

Having said that, A Wounded Fawn is absolutely superb. I would easily rank it as one of my favourite films from this year, and that means that director Travis Stevens is now three for three with the feature films he has directed (before this one we had the enjoyable Jakob's Wife and, his feature debut, Girl On The Third Floor).

Sarah Lind plays Meredith, a young woman who has decided to go away for a weekend with Bruce (played by Josh Ruben). The two will be staying in a cabin in the woods, standard middle of nowhere kinda location, and a nice time will hopefully be had by the both of them. But things start feeling off from the start, and it isn't long until Meredith suspects that she may be in mortal danger. In a strange twist, however, it isn't long until Bruce also feels the same way.

Co-written by Stevens and Nathan Faudree, this is a film that delivers some weird and wild imagery within a template that could have easily just been a dark and entertaining serial killer movie. I'm still undecided about what everything means, particularly in the very last scenes, but I know that I loved every moment, whether it was a burst of surprising bloody violence or a languid "waking dream" showing us the mythical figures who were encouraging or castigating a confused killer.

It helps that both Lind and Ruben are genuinely excellent in their roles. The former is the kind of lead who emanates so much screen presence that she can play natural without ever seeming dull, the latter is great at being just a little bit "off" until the real danger of the movie is revealed. Although mostly just a two-hander, there's also a supporting role for Malin Barr that allows her to have a bit more screentime than you might expect, and allows her to portray a character who is more than just a potential random victim.

Dialogue may be minimal for a good 2/3 of the runtime, but Faudree and Stevens do a great job of filling the film with enough to observe and dissect throughout. There are many small details that end up becoming more important as they start to recur, and viewers start to realise the value that certain characters have placed upon them, and the whole thing is an obtuse puzzle that never becomes too frustrating while we all wait to be shown the ultimate reveal/solution.

From the audio work to the practical FX moments that will make you wince, A Wounded Fawn very rarely puts a foot wrong. It's held back from being perfect by the smallest of margins, and I couldn't even put my finger on anything I viewed as a proper negative aspect. I may even adjust my rating upwards whenever I make time to rewatch it.

9/10

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Shudder Saturday: Jakob's Wife (2021)

Barbara Crampton plays Anne Fedder, a woman who is married to Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden). Their marriage seems a bit stale, I think it's fair to say, and Anne has settled into a role that leaves her a bit (or a lot?) less satisfied than she should be. But that changes when she is bitten by a creature (Bonnie Aarons, working under a very impressive make up job). Anne may need to drink blood from others now, but she also has a confidence and aura that has been missing for many years. That changes her marriage, and not necessarily all for the worse.

Directed by Travis Stevens (who also helmed the very enjoyable The Girl On The Third Floor), and co-written by Stevens with Kathy Charles and Mark Steensland, Jakob's Wife is yet another fun film in a sub-genre that everyone assumes is dead until a fresh approach is presented. There are numerous elements and moments here that feel lifted from past vampire movies (e.g. how often have we seen someone be bitten and then try to satisfy their new urges with raw meat/blood from a butcher shop?), but the material is given a nice twist when the focus shifts to the state of the marriage between Anne and Jakob, using the bite itself as a metaphor for any big change made by a spouse that reinvigorates their mind and spirit.

It helps that the leads here are Crampton and Fessenden, with the former a particular boost to the production, considering I have been convinced for some time now that she has at least one bath full of blood a week to maintain her victory over the passage of time affecting us all. Crampton is fine while playing the more timid version of Anne, but she gets to have way more fun as her character blossoms. Fessenden is excellent, his character putting the pieces of a puzzle together while he wrestles with his conscience over the best way to move forward. Aarons gets to be the Nosferatu of this tale, and her physical presence is genuinely spooky and impressive. Nyisha Bell is a young woman who goes AWOL early on, and she does well in her role, and there's decent support from Sarah Lind and Mark Kelly, as well as a fun small turn from Robert Rusler.

Although never a film you would mistake for a mainstream studio horror movie, and I am not noting that here as any negative, Jakob's Wife is very well made throughout, from the visuals to the unintrusive score, by Tara Busch. There may be nothing here that stands out as being absolutely brilliant, aside from the core cast, but the script and direction are full of nice little touches, the pacing is pretty perfect, and the ending is deliciously dark and satisfying. What you have here is a good film that manages, thanks to the way it never once drops in quality, to become ever so slightly great. It's also interesting and fun enough to warrant more than one viewing, and I can easily see it becoming a film that some horror movie fans will choose to champion for the next few years. If it doesn't get the attention it deserves. So you can get ahead of the curve by giving it that attention now.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Girl On The Third Floor (2019)

A standard haunted house tale with a good dose of blood and gore added, Girl On The Third Floor, the directorial feature debut from Travis Stevens, gets a lot right, not least of which is the casting of the main roles. It's a fun film that provides some solid scares, adding a new coat of paint to some very familiar fare.

C. M. Punk (AKA Phil Brooks) stars as Don Koch, an ex-lawyer who is now renovating a home that can be the location for the new life ahead with his pregnant wife (Liz, played by Trieste Kelly Dunn). The home has a history though, and that history seems to not want to lie dormant, especially when there's a chance to test anyone new coming into the house.

Starting off rather innocuously, you get fittings that are leaking dodgy fluids and the standard frustrations of things getting worse while someone tries to make improvements, Girl On The Third Floor follows a pretty standard haunted house movie structure. Things go bump, things get worse, a spirit appears to create even more trouble, and the central character finds themselves being prodded and pulled apart like so many fresh bread rolls accompanying a tasty bowl of mussels in sauce (I don't know, just accept the weird simile and move on).

Punk, as I will call him, is very good in the lead role. It's a bit hard to believe him as an ex-lawyer, although not impossible, but he's excellent in the many scenes that have him on his own in the house, dealing with slight feelings of unease while he gets the repairs done. Dunn does well in her role, although she's used for most of the runtime as a motivating presence without actually being present. Sarah Brooks is believably tempting as a young woman who turns Don's head, Travis Delgado does well with the small amount of screentime he has as Milo, an ex-colleague who turns up to help with some of the repairs, and Karen Woditsch is excellent as a neighbour who knows how the house can affect people.

There are a number of different writers involved here. It's based on a story by Paul Johnstone and Ben Parker, with Stevens then adapting the material into screenplay form and doing his best by it in his directorial role. There may be a few too many tics and twitches in the character of Don (not literally, but you'll know what I mean when you see the film), and subtlety isn't a strong point at any time in the film, but this is a good horror that mixes in a lot of enjoyable little details with some bigger frights. The technical side of things is very good, the audio work is particularly impressive, and the 93-minute runtime is just right, allowing the fairly slim premise to play out well enough on the way to a satisfying final act.

Although not in the same league as some of the heavy-hitters in this sub-genre, Girl On The Third Floor is a nice blend of well-worn tropes overlaid with some modern sensibilities, all done in a way that still feels surprisingly fresh and energetic without feeling as if it is trying too hard, or overdoing things in a way to compensate for any failings. An easy one to recommend.

7/10