A WOUNDED FAWN (2022)

Studio:     Shudder
Director:    Travis Stevens
Writer:     Travis Stevens, Nathan Faudree
Producer:  Joe Barbagallo, Laurence Gendron, Travis Stevens
Stars:     Josh Ruben, Sarah Lind, Malin Barr, Katie Kuang, Tanya Everett, Laksmi Hedemark, Marshall Taylor Thurman

Review Score:

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Summary:

Tables are unusually turned on a murderous man who brings his new girlfriend to a remote woodland cabin to kill her.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

After his art collector client loses out to hers on a proxy bid for a distinctive Erinyes statue, secret serial killer Bruce Ernst follows Kate Horna back to her home from an auction. Haunted by an imposing vision of a Red Owl figure, Bruce murders Kate and steals the sculpture.

Bruce brings his new girlfriend Meredith Tanning, a gallery docent recovering from an abusive relationship, to his remote woodland cabin for a weekend getaway where he actually plans to kill her. Upon arriving at the cabin, Meredith hears a disembodied voice warn her to leave.

Meredith recognizes the Erinyes statue as having gone through her museum for provenance verification. To keep her from digging further, Bruce claims his sculpture is merely a replica. Meredith still takes a photo of the statue and texts it to her friend Wendy who works with her at the museum.

Tensions mount between Meredith and Bruce as Meredith becomes increasingly unsettled by odd occurrences such as seeing an unknown woman walking by outside. After initially refusing, Bruce ultimately agrees to take Meredith back to the city when she demands to leave due to the growing strangeness.

While another vision of the Red Owl indicates to Bruce that it is finally time to murder her, Meredith takes a phone call from Wendy. Wendy warns Meredith to leave the cabin immediately because the Erinyes sculpture was reported stolen and the woman who bought it went missing.

Once Meredith returns to the main room, Bruce suddenly slashes her throat, which seemingly kills Meredith. Bruce burns Meredith’s clothes, destroys her phone, and masturbates before returning to her body. Having apparently survived the slashing, Meredith unexpectedly beats Bruce unconscious with the statue.

When he recovers from the massive head trauma, Bruce notices a piece of his skull poking into his head. Bruce then experiences a series of strange visions and encounters that include an aggressive dog, Kate, Meredith, another victim named Leonora, and other figures masked as Furies from Greek theater.

When the haunting hallucinations subside, Bruce takes the statue outside as an offering for his psychological torment to stop. However, Meredith continues to confront Bruce with taunting visions and cryptic conversations. Bruce insists he isn’t evil, but that there is a floating piece inside his skull that tells him who to target and commands him to kill.

Feeling tricked by Meredith, Bruce storms outside to collect the statue. More visions that include Kate as well as Meredith wearing a mask surround Bruce before chasing him into a forest.

In their final confrontation, Bruce claims Meredith drove out the Red Owl, but she demands that he confess to being a thief and a murderer. Refusing to do so, invisible arms start slashing Bruce to death as he pleads for Meredith to call “them” off. A sudden cut back to reality shows that Meredith survived her slashing by putting duct tape around her throat and she now stands watching as Bruce kills himself on the forest floor.

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Review:

Mood greatly affects how someone responds to a movie. It’s a combined influence that comes from a viewer’s personal disposition at the time as well as the distinctive texture created by the film.

In a recent review I mentioned how sometimes you might be in the market for a straightforward slasher that doesn’t demand a lot of brainpower. Other times you might have a hunger for a complex psychological thriller with plentiful metaphors primed for unpacking. Set yourself up for one when what you really want is the other and you’re likely to have a miserable time at the movies.

I wouldn’t set “A Wounded Fawn’s” position in stone solely in that latter category, although it does apply a layer of psychedelic experimentation open to philosophical interpretation to an otherwise simple story of a secret serial killer having the tables turned when he takes his new girlfriend to a secluded cabin to murder her. As such, “A Wounded Fawn” is very much a movie where mood, yours along with the one collectively woven by the cast and crew, will directly determine which way your thumb points when it’s all said and done.

Bruce is an art broker by day and a homicidal stalker by night. Meredith is a gallery docent who has unknowingly become Bruce’s latest target, even though she thinks she’s in for a private woodland weekend with an attractive new beau. Flash forward past the patient buildup of otherworldly intervention seemingly warning Meredith to be wary and we come to a point where the ominous figure haunting Bruce’s head finally compels him to kill. Events don’t go exactly as planned, so Bruce ends up in a nightmarish dreamscape where past victims disguised as Greek Furies torment him to confront his true, despicable nature.

When I said “A Wounded Fawn” applies “psychedelic experimentation open to philosophical interpretation,” I absolutely meant it. After a comparatively routine first act, the second act goes hard on theatrical dialogue, cryptic comparisons to ancient mythology, and hallucinatory imagery. Things get so weird in fact that the final 30 minutes feature nothing but a series of strange tableaus terrorizing Bruce’s brain.

How “A Wounded Fawn” uses thematic fantasy to compose a story composes the first half of what I mean about the movie’s mood. The other half has to do with the artistic approach.

Throwback thrillers rarely, if ever, pull off completely convincing recreations of the eras they’re emulating. Even bigger, beloved production like “Stranger Things” can’t resist going so overboard on needle drops, period props, and pop culture references that they practically become time capsule parodies of specific decades. Filmmakers can give every extra a Flock of Seagulls hairstyle, pump in a synth soundtrack, and conspicuously cut away to close-ups of Tab cans, but actors still seem like they’re cosplaying because no film ever fully escapes the modernity of its making.

Marking a notable exception to this rule, “A Wounded Fawn” authentically looks like it was ripped right out of a time machine that traveled back 50 years. The story isn’t actually set in the 1970s since Meredith uses a cellphone several times. But in addition to being shot on film, “A Wounded Fawn” evidently employs a vintage lens whose glass correctly captures the telltale lines, colors, and grain of an old Italian giallo. The only thing missing is an ADR overdub of dialogue and the movie would be indistinguishable from the early work of Dario Argento thanks to inclusions like a random Doberman and a tracking shot of a bridge’s underside from a moving car. What with the way the camera finds its frames to the sets that look lived-in instead of stitched together from an art department errand run, “A Wounded Fawn” becomes an outstanding example of how to do retro right.

How much appeal anyone finds in the film’s dark take on a classic Greek tragedy correlates to how well the movie’s messages can speak to someone through this style. Casual pacing combined with semi-heady themes narrows the niche whose hands will clap in appreciation. But students of staging and cinematography are likely to find more tangible rewards in the technical craft on display, independent of whether or not the movie meets its mark as a narrative.

Review Score: 65

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