Review - Lovely, Dark, and Deep

 Lovely, Dark, and Deep (2024)

Director: Teresa Sutherland
Writer: Teresa Sutherland
Stars: Georgina Campbell, Nick Blood, Wai Ching Ho
How to Watch: VOD

Synopsis: Lennon, a new back-country ranger, travels alone through the dangerous wilderness, hoping to uncover the origins of a tragedy that has haunted her since she was a child.

Thoughts: The woods are a terrifying place. And I grew up surrounded by them - living in a large, (slightly haunted?) house in the middle of the woods in the 1980s. My childhood was spent camping in the woods, walking in the woods, playing hide & seek in the woods at night. And despite the woods being a constant presence in my life, I've always had a respectful fear of them. Of the secrets they keep. Of the power of nature. Of knowing that, regardless of having a native american heritage, that the woods aren't a place where people belong. And I still believe that now, as an adult, more than ever.

Writer/Director Teresa Sutherland (writer of the 2018 historical horror film, The Wind, which I loved) creates a psychological nightmare using the woods as a place *not* to get lost in. Our main character, actress Georgina Campbell, who has become somewhat of a scream queen as of late, starring in Barbarian, Bird Box: Barcelona, and this year's T.I.M. (a Megan ripoff?), delivers a bit of a subdued performance as a park ranger who gets lost and stumbles into a super trippy alternate world (? unclear), full of body horror and ghosts and hallucinations of her past. 

This ultra slow-burn of a film was a very compelling watch. The cinematography is gorgeous. The shots of the woods aren't gloomy and creepy but instead bright and welcoming and beautiful.  But even with the beauty you can feel the claustrophobia of being so small within the endless expanse of the outdoors. Much like viewing a scuba diver in the immensity of the ocean. And the auditory element! Lots of crunching leaves and birds and wind. Which are all used in the normal space of being in nature, until it's then used against your senses and then the nature noises become unsettling and malicious. You can feel the "other shoe" hovering above your head, waiting for it to drop and clobber you. And clobber it does. The film takes an unexpected turn into the weird, into the really fucking weird, and while I was absolutely there for it, I didn't know what the hell was going on. Doing a deep dive Google of the movie, it looks like no one who has watched this movie had any clue what it was about, which makes me feel somewhat better. So this review will end much like the one I wrote for Monolith - was it aliens? was is The Woods? Was it an alternate dimension? I have my theories but they feel about as solid as quicksand. But ultimately this was an interesting watch full of looming dread, and once the weird wraps up, it's got a satisfying though open-ended conclusion that I thought was clever and kind of brave.

3 out of 5 💀s