That is your god?
She was here long before the apes started dreaming of gods.
In this horror film from South Africa, a forest ranger discovers a father and son living off the grid deep in a massive forest; when she’s injured, she finds herself trapped with them, only to then discover that something primordial is lurking in the woods around them, something the father and son have formed a neo-pagan religion around. I really wanted to like this movie, but overall, I just didn’t. I honestly think my main issue with the movie really is the performances; this is essentially a three person movie, with a fourth actor only appearing briefly before we settle into the meat (unfortunate turn of phrase) of the movie where the only characters are the ranger, the father and the son. And none of those three central performances were that good. Monique Rockman plays the ranger and she’s honestly . . . I mean, I hate to say this, but she’s downright terrible. I mean, it’s kind of amusing to see people bashing Annabelle Wallis’ performance in Malignant; I mean, that performance is patchy, but if you want to see what bad acting really looks like, Rockman’s performance here is the one for you. Just about everything she says and does feels awkward and forced; she’s just bad. Alex Van Dyk is also not very good as the son. Carel Nel, as the father, is the best of them and it’s a patchy performance; he has some really good moments and some moments that aren’t so good. The movie also reveals its “monsters” way too early. I suspect some of these effects were done practically, which is always cool, but the movie isn’t even a third of the way over the first time we get a full shot of one of the creatures dramatically posing. I suspect light use of CGI as well; for whatever reason, it doesn’t look great and I think the movie would have been much scarier if the creatures had been kept off screen more. There’s one incredibly creepy shot where a character is close to the camera and back in the pitch darkness behind him, we just see this pale, kind of distorted figure starting to creep out of the shadows and it’s really effective. I wish the filmmakers had done more of that, rather than just revealing the monsters so fully.
That said, there are some things that I like here. I’d honestly like to see director Jaco Bouwer given a bigger budget and some better actors because he has some interesting visual ideas. He’s able to turn a beautiful, verdant forest into a creepy, ominous environment through lighting and disorienting camera moves. And the score by Pierre Henri-Wicomb is really effective at building tension. It’s not exactly groundbreaking; it’s the kind of dissonant, droning score that you find in a lot of modern horror, but it’s very well done and it helps the movie immensely with its unsettling sounds. There were a couple of times when I think I genuinely would have laughed at a particularly bad line reading or cheesy moment if not for the music. Anyway, I wish I could have liked this movie more; it’s exactly the kind of movie I like to find and really champion. But unfortunately, this one’s not a winner. 1 star.
tl;dr – a terrible lead performance sinks this half-baked eco-horror, despite some genuinely striking visuals; it would be scarier if it kept its monsters hidden, instead of revealing them so plainly. 1 star.