Women in Horror Mini-Reviews: Honeymoon (2015) and A Dark Song (2016)

* Honeymoon (2015)

* spoilers *

Jorge watches his neighbor Isabel as she jogs by every day for weeks, learning her routine and overhearing her conversations with other people. One day, he abducts her off the street to keep her in his house with a room, clothes, drugs, and restraints specifically for this purpose. He sets rules for her behavior which of course she doesn't follow. The punishments include a beating, acid in the mouth, degloving her fingers, and so much worse. He officiates a wedding between them even though she's already married and strangles her until she says yes. Jorge is the epitome of toxic masculinity. He's in love with the idea of this woman and felt entitled to her. Once she was there, Isabel is not as expected and he tries to mold her into an obedient wife.

I felt that this film was pretty lackluster. We don't know the characters very well before anything happens and they don't really progress at all. It makes the film feel hollow and especially exploitative when Jorge's treatment of Isabel is shown often in extreme close up. The plot also isn't very original and the twists and turns fell flat in my opinion. Isabel's husband paid Jorge to kill Isabel in order to collect the life insurance money. It just makes the only men in the film garbage, but considering what's constantly in the news, it isn't very surprising. The ending has Isabel kidnapping men and doing the same to them. It wasn't very clear why and I find it hard to accept when the experience was so traumatic for her. The film as a whole is uncomfortable to watch with no real reason behind it.

My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins

* A Dark Song (2016)

Sophia is grieving for her son and commits to casting a spell so she can speak to him. She rents a house for year and hires Soloman, a brash man who insists he knows the ritual she needs. He has a long list of demands from a huge amount of money to forcing her to cook and clean for them with no help. Both characters are frustrating in different ways. Sophia is constantly lying about her life and what the spell is for when it matters to the success of the ritual. Soloman, on the other hand, treats Sophia terribly, constantly screaming at her and calling into question the veracity of the enture ritual. Perhaps he's only exploiting her for whatever he can get. This is particularly called into question in the scene where he fools her into stripping for what he says is a spell, but turns out to be his own sexual gratification. Soloman is insufferable, abusive, and hard to watch.

The actual ritual requires complete commitment and it's a gruelling, harrowing experience. Sophia has to go days without eating or drinking in addition to the purification beforehand with no sex, drinking, or eating at night. Everything also has to be precise and correct, sometimes forcing them to redo parts of the ritual many times. Magic is blood , sweat, and tears more than anything and Sophia is willing to do it all. After a while, Sophia is understandably frustrated that nothing is happening until something small happens. The magic is in subtle things that happen, gold flecks in the air and the smell of flowers. Even with these signs, Once Sophia is alone, the horror elements come in creatures that flood the house. However, unlike most horror films, the beautiful ending is full of grace and redemption. A Dark Song has elements I don't like and some that don't work, but it's a unique film with a different point of view of magic.

My rating: 2.5/5 fishmuffins