‘Honeycomb’ Fantasia Fest 2022 Review – Microbudget Horror Film Is Utterly Lackluster

Plot Summary: Five girls stray from society on the hunt for something more special. You can find them if you follow the sound.

I was remarking to a friend of mine how everything at Fantasia so far has been great. Hell, even some of the lesser films still managed to be enjoyable on some level. Well, my friends, I may have just jinxed myself, because after this chat, I sat down and watched Honeycomb. Now, this is clearly made on a micro-budget. Therefore, I won’t be judging it on the same level as a major film, or even a modest but still indie film. Resources do play a major part in shaping the overall final product. However, paraphrasing from the great Joe Bob Briggs, “You don’t need money for a good script.”

Oh boy, this movie is as aimless as it gets. Credit where credit is due, I think that the idea of an all-women society completely losing their shit Lord of the Flies style is an interesting one. Indeed, I think there are a lot of great stories you can mine from that core concept. Sadly, it does nothing that feels original or interesting. This movie has a lot of issues, but the driving narrative and characters are woefully underwritten. On a fundamental level, it feels like a struggle to believe that a group of normal teens would literally leave everything and everyone to start a society in a crummy shack in the woods. Being an ensemble cast means characters aren’t fleshed out and everyone is so surface level. I don’t think I remember anyone after the credits rolled. The dialogue is some of the most wooden and unnatural this side of The Room. You can tell the screenwriter is aiming for realistic banter, but it seriously comes a crossed like an A.I wrote it.

The stilted lines might not have been a huge issue if you had a group of actors that could really sell them. Though, that isn’t the case here. While I hate to call out performers, there really is no getting around it. This has some of the worst acting I’ve seen in a long time. None of the performers seems to be on the same page with the material. Some are either over or under-acting. Had the movie gone more surreal and off-kilter, the bad dialogue and weird acting choices may have actually worked in its favor.

On a technical level, Honeycomb is also pretty terrible. I don’t often ever comment on this, (because its rarely ever an issue) but the sound mix is really bad. Half of the time you can’t even hear the dialogue, and other times, wind noises will further obscure things. Or just weird stuff like, a girl is playing the song “Strawberry Fields.” We hear a few seconds of it before it shuts off (I say shut off, not turned off), because, you know, they’d have to pay for a Beatles song. A second after the song cuts off, another girl barks for her to, “turn it off.” Pile on bad makeup, sloppy editing and bloated pacing, and the end result is a slog. What’s frustrating is a lot of issues in this movie could easily have been fixed had more care been put into the overall production. You get an overall sense that every aspect is so utterly lackluster.

Honeycomb has some fruitful ideas, but it never does anything with them that hasn’t already been done before, only much better.

Honeycomb had its Quebec Premiere at the 2022 Fantasia International Film Festival. 

Directors: Avalon Fast

Runtime: 70m

Cast: Sophie Bawks-Smith, Jillian Frank, Mari Geraghty, Henri Gillespi, Destini Stewart, Jaris Wales, Rowan Wales