Honeyspider (2015)
Happy Halloween!
Quiet college bookworm Jackie is turning the big two-one this Halloween. Well, not this Halloween, but Halloween 26 years ago. Everybody except her seems to be excited about her birthday, so she inevitably gets invited to the big party that night to celebrate and plans to swing by after work and after cramming for her important exam. So the day goes by, and she lounges around her college campus, goes to work at a cool movie theater, studies, and occasionally envisions nightmarish occult-related omens that momentarily trouble her. Could the only creepy person in her life, her professor with in-depth Halloween knowledge, be the one tormenting her with this imagery for sinister purposes? It’d be a safe bet. But what certain horror will await her that night, and will she survive?
Honeyspider is an independent occult horror movie set on October 31, 1989 and immediately brings to mind two similar neo-retro horror movies. The pacing, atmosphere, and most of the content is heavily borrowed from Ti West’s seminal The House of the Devil. In fact, it is closer to being a remake to West’s film than a lot of true remakes are to their original sources. Also, the unauthentic 1980’s production/wardrobe design and the naïve lightheartedness of the film remind this viewer of the 2012 indie slasher The Sleeper. Both of these resemblances save the movie for me personally, as I love those two films very much, but there really isn’t a lot to digest with this particular movie (except spiders).
Like West’s film, and like one of its biggest criticisms from its haters, is that literally nothing happens during the first two-thirds of the runtime, at least. The difference here is that the atmosphere and sense of foreboding does not build towards the climax but rather spikes only a couple of times to remind you that the story is indeed going somewhere. The inactivity is further exaggerated by periodical extended and slow tracking shots of mundane activities. It wasn’t until the movie-within-the-movie playing at Jackie’s theater, titled “Sleepover Slaughterhouse III,” did things begin to liven up (and not just because this faux film contains half of this movie’s gore and all of its nudity). From here on in, Honeyspider delivers what the viewer has waited very patiently for.
The gore and gross-out moments that appear late in the movie are practical and well-achieved. The production design during the surreal climax amps up the spooky Halloween nature tenfold and gives the proceedings a homegrown haunted house attraction-type ambiance. The score consists of beautifully gloomy piano leads over ominous electronic drones, very evocative of classic horror films, and fun Halloween oldies like “The Monster Mash” and “Spooky Movies” (a personal favorite of this reviewer, for obvious reasons) bring the holiday’s festive spirit back into the fold. There are, however, no strong performances acting-wise and again little in the way of content that drives the movie forward.
Honeyspider will not pull you in from the get go and fails to hold a candle to the movies it will most certainly remind you of. Other than “Sleepover Slaughterhouse III,” you could watch the film’s official trailer and get the same out of it as you would if you were to view the entire film. The good news is that Honeyspider plays the Halloween card hard, and for viewers who only want a holiday-themed popcorn flick to watch during the harvest season, it manages to pass the bar, I’m happy to say. I feel I had to be super critical with this title as it was constantly at odds with itself, but my final opinion: it was fine. I am perfectly okay with the time I spent with this one. As purely a low-budget Halloween horror film, it satisfies. –N. Weaver
