Honeymoon is the sort of horror film that plays upon the most basic of fears which is always a gamble because either it will work or it will not. To make it successful, you have to have actors that can sell your picture because if they are not able to then it will just end up being a dismal failure. In this picture, there is the fear of your loved one going missing, the fear of them being hurt and ultimately, the fear of losing them. Those are pretty common fears that most people experience throughout their lives and most can attest to feeling. Not only do the actors need to be able to sell the audience on these emotions, but there also needs to be a director that can make it look real and give it that worry as well and luckily, this film had both of those things.

Directed by Leigh Janiak who also co-wrote the film with Phil Graziadei, she takes this simple tale of a couple on their honeymoon and injects it full of suspense and a slow-building tension. It begins when in the middle of the night, Bea disappears from bed and after a long search, Paul then finds her standing naked in the woods. From there, things get a little weird as Bea starts developing all of these strange behavioural problems. As the film progresses and the stress between the two actors builds, it gets to a point where it is ready to boil over and it is then that Janiak delivers a disturbing finale.

The acting is the best part of the film and it is a credit to Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway’s abilities that they put the material across so well. They start off as a young couple in love and as the film goes through its paces, that love is pushed to its limits. Watching Bea go out of her mind is hard to do at times though the worst moments are seeing Paul go out of his. The man is worried for his wife and he gets more and more frustrated and more frantic until he is almost past the breaking point and when he reaches it, that is when disaster strikes. Leslie and Treadaway sell this film perfectly and it is exactly what the material needed to make it as good as it is. There is one part though that almost ruined the entire film. Watching this, you will know exactly when it hits and you will groan seeing it because moments like this are usually the death knell of any film as they are so cliched and overplayed. Thankfully Janiak pulls it back from the brink and saves it, but it almost ruined the whole film and really, going where she went just seemed a little lazy. Janiak and Graziadei wrote a good script, but they could have been just a little bit more inventive.

In all, Honeymoon is an enjoyable picture that really plays upon your empathy for the given situations. Even when it starts to get a little silly, the film manages to hold your interest and the ending, though a little predictable, is sinister all the same. As far as recent horror films go, this one was pretty good and is worth checking out.

3.5 out of 5