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‘Honeydew’ and 8 of the Creepiest Backwoods Nightmares in Horror
From Bloody Disgusting and Dark Star Pictures, deranged backwoods horror movie Honeydew marks the feature debut by Devereux Milburn. It follows a young couple (Sawyer Spielberg and Malin Barr) as they’re forced to seek shelter in an aging farmer’s home (Barbara Kingsley) with her strange son. Tensions between the couple mount as weird food cravings and hallucinations kick in, along with realizing that their host may not be as kind as she appears.
Honeydew unsettles straight off the bat with ominous signs that something is exceptionally off about the locals. In horror, the line between civilization and perilous backwoods terror can be razor-thin. Protagonists set out for a weekend getaway in nature, only to encounter backwoods inhabitants with murder on their minds. Some take it a step further, with the antagonists aiming to make their prey their next meal. Its survival horror dialed up to an intense degree.
Honeydew releases on VOD and Digital HD on April 13, 2021. In celebration, we look back at eight of horror’s creepiest backwoods nightmares.
Jug Face
Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter) lives in a rural backwoods community that worships a mysterious pit with healing powers. They regularly sacrifice one of their own to the hole, decided upon by whoever’s face Dawai (Sean Bridgers) sculpts onto a jug. When Ada discovers her face on Dawai’s latest jug, she hides it to avoid her sacrifice. In retaliation, the entity within the pit lashes out in anger, causing a domino effect of tragedy. This low-budget indie is moody and dour. Its strong performances carry it, but there’s plenty of blood, too. When many horror movies present their backwoods locals as inbred mutants, Jug Face dares to make them relatively normal and relatable.
Just Before Dawn
Five young people trek into the mountainous backwoods of Oregon to find rural property one of them has just inherited, despite being warned to stay away by the forest ranger. They should have listened as they find themselves stalked and hunted by a psychopath. Just Before Dawn may sound familiar to countless slashers, but its execution sets it apart. Directed by Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Satan’s Little Helper), this slasher gives a new twist to the standard slasher archetypes. More thrillingly, it holds a few nasty tricks up its sleeves for its killer reveal and final confrontation.
Eden Lake
Jenny (Kelly Reilly) and Steve (Michael Fassbender) plan a romantic camping trip away in the countryside. Relaxation and passion quickly give way to violence instead when a group of vicious teens encroaches. A brutal night unfolds that will leave you devastated and quite possibly angry. Eden Lake challenges the preconceived perceptions of backwoods horror; the villains aren’t mutants or hillbillies. They’re ruthless teens, and the bitter ending signals that apples don’t fall far from the tree.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End
The first film established the inbred cannibal family that slays those venturing into their back wooded territory. For this sequel, director Joe Lynch ramps up the gore with glee. This time, it’s a group of reality show contestants that run afoul of the inbred clan. Much like Honeydew, food plays a prominent role here. At least it does in one unforgettable dinner scene. The poor Final Girl here gets tied down to a chair and force-fed human flesh; it’s over the top and icky in the best way.
Motel Hell
“It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent Fritters.” In this fun horror-comedy, a friendly farmer and his sister kidnap travelers, bury them alive up to their necks and then harvest them for creating their famous smoked meats. It’s a pitch-black comedy unafraid to get weird, introducing a new, wacky twist to cannibalistic horror. A loving riff on the classics, like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Motel Hell forges its own silly path that will leave you almost rooting for the bad guys. Almost.
The Hills Have Eyes
The remake doesn’t deviate much from Wes Craven’s 1977 original, but for sheer intensity, it wins out. Trading forest lands for a scorching desert, a road-tripping family must fight for their lives when they encounter a savage clan in the middle of nowhere. In director Alexandre Aja and writer Gregory Levasseur’s hands, their version of The Hills Have Eyes is an onslaught of tense violence and the pacing is much faster. The cannibal family is also much more monstrous.
Calvaire
An entertainer heads home for the holidays, but a vehicle breakdown in the middle of nowhere leaves him vulnerable to strange backwoods residents. Borrowing similar visual cues from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, this twisty tale features a bizarre dinner scene. Its lead gets bound to a chair and forced to dine with the strange town inhabitants with whom he’s unwittingly crossed paths. Unlike Sally Hardesty, though, poor Marc has been subjected to his captors’ torture for much longer, building up to a Christmas dinner overrun by pure insanity. In a scene that feels like Deliverance meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, you’ll never look at pigs or Christmas dinner the same way again. It’s gruesome, bleak, and downright absurd.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Tobe Hooper set the bar high with this stone-cold classic. It happens to feature one of the most influential dinner scenes in horror. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her brother, and their friends take a road trip to visit her grandfather’s grave in Texas. While strolling down memory lane, the group falls prey to a family of cannibalistic psychopaths. Trade the woods for rural flatlands, but the strange locals’ scenario still applies. Hooper infuses his disturbing debut with some twisted humor, most noticeably at the dinner scene that sees poor Sally get tortured. For most, thanks to Leatherface, it’s too disturbing to be funny.
Get acquainted with the neighbors in Honeydew on VOD and Digital on April 13, 2021.
A luxury team-building trip descends into a bloody fight for survival against a vengeful retreat leader in Corporate Retreat, out today in theaters. It’s the latest entry in a cathartic subgenre of workplace horror that examines every harrowing aspect of job employment.
No job is safe from horror, either, from babysitting to even the most white-collar gigs. But if you work an overnight shift? All bets are off. Vengeful co-workers and bosses aside, the night shift is likely to come armed with witches, creatures, demons, and all manner of things that go bump in the night. Even deadly outbreaks.
Corporate Retreat, along with these five horror movies centered around some of the worst night shifts, will make you glad the weekend has finally arrived.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Passenger director André Øvredal goes full throttle for the scares in this quiet little chiller that sees a father and son coroner team stumped over the bizarre mysteries contained within the body of an unidentified young woman during an unexpected night shift. Well-executed scares, clever twists, and earnest performances by Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch give this supernatural haunter serious heft. While the narrative bides its time unveiling the truth behind Jane Doe’s battered body, it’s heavily steeped in witchcraft. In other words, The Autopsy of Jane Doe presents a new take on the subgenre. More importantly, it’s seriously scary.
Cold Storage
COLD STORAGE, StudioCanal 2023
A lethal, mutated fungus breaks free from confinement deep within the bowels of a storage facility. At the frontlines of the madness are Teacake (Stranger Things’ Joe Keery) and Naomi (Barbarian‘s Georgina Campbell), two employees thrust into the middle of the chaos when they investigate an alarm beeping somewhere deep within the building. Director Jonny Campbell (Netflix’s Dracula), working from a script by David Koepp based on his novel, helms the goopy madness with workman efficiency. This lighthearted, goopy horror comedy romp makes the deadly night shift a bit more bearable.
Graveyard Shift
Graveyard Shift follows new hire Hall (David Andrews) tasked by his mean boss Warwick (Stephen Macht) to assist with the insane rat infestation beneath their mill. They find something much most monstrous as the cause. Though the film was panned, it’s a fun creature feature with an always welcome appearance by Brad Dourif as the intensely eccentric exterminator. The film also opts for a happier ending, whereas (spoiler), the story sees both Hall and Warwick getting devoured by the mutated rats, the crew in the upstairs mill none the wiser.
Last Shift
‘Last Shift’
Rookie Officer Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) has been assigned to watch over a closing precinct on its final night of operation…alone. With nearly everything already moved over to the new station, including rerouted 911 calls, it should be a pretty quiet night as she waits for a Hazmat team to arrive to remove biohazardous waste. Instead, it becomes a waking nightmare as she’s forced to deal with unsettling visitors. Last Shift, co-written by Scott Poiley and director Anthony DiBlasi, brings the scares.
Intruder
The overnight stock crew of a local grocery store finds themselves falling victim to an unseen killer in this highly infectious late ‘80s slasher. The deaths are delightfully gruesome and inventive; look for this killer to make excellent use of grocery store items as weapons. Frequent Raimi collaborator Scott Spiegel directed this bloody slasher, which means a lot of overlap with the Evil Dead II. That means putting Sam Raimi in front of the camera for a change, along with Ted Raimi and Evil Dead II’s Dan Hicks. Look for a cameo by Bruce Campbell as well!
Corporate Retreat releases in theaters today; get tickets now.
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