Let's talk about unofficial reboots: movies that are remakes of older movies without taking the title of the older movie to be an official reboot, kind of like how Disturbia was an unofficial reboot of of Rear Window. Why do they happen? Well, to put it bluntly it's so the studio doesn't have to pay for an established license. Are they good? Sometimes, but not usually. If you haven't guessed it by now, today's entry is indeed an unofficial reboot of sorts.A reboot of what, you ask? Well, let's get into that and as usual, spoilers ahead.
Honeymoon is the 2014 brainchild of writer/director Leigh Janiak, co-written by Phil Graziadei. The first thing I took notice of was the Tomatometer. Sitting fresh from critics with a 73% approval rating it did raise an eyebrow, but then I saw the audience approval at a dismal 44%. If you listen to our main show and you're like me you also probably instantly thought that this would be some artsy-fartsy bullcrap that Aaron would like. But, I decided to throw caution to the wind and take a chance.
Honeymoon has a very small cast, only centered around 2 people: Harry Treadway (Control, Penny Dreadful) as Paul and Rose Leslie (Morgan, The Last Witch Hunger, Game of Thrones) as Bea. The movie focuses on these newlyweds on their honeymoon, hence the title. If Mike were writing this he would probably make some lame joke about this being a Bea movie, but luckily he's not and I won't. I will, however, make a joke about Bee Movie.
Anyway, Paul and Bea take they honeymoon at Bea's family's isolated cabin in the woods, but not that cabin in the woods so don't get too excited. Eventually spooky stuff happens, you know the drill. But right away we're met with our first major hangup. This is a very slow movie, and normally I wouldn't mind, but in an hour and a half long movie we don't even start to even hint at horror until over half an hour in. That means the first third of the movie is just watching a couple on their honeymoon and it gets really boring really fast. The movie doesn't need to dedicate that much time to building their relationship. They just got married we know what their relationship is, get on with it.
So eventually spooky things start to happen which we don't really see, we just see the effects. Basically Bae starts acting weird and Paul gets concerned, things degrade between them and then we get our big horror movie reveal of what's actually happening. So how is this an unofficial reboot? It's a body snatchers movie. Not on a global scale like Invasion of the Body Snatchers but in essence that's what it is. There are these weird worm things that crawl into a lady's...ahem...lady parts and take over their consciousness from definitely not their brain. I know this because there is a scene where Paul pulls out of these worms from Bea's...ahem...lady parts. Where they come from or why it happens is not explained, and the movie is almost over by the time we get the reveal so there literally is no time to explain. The movie closes with Bea tying up Paul and dumping him in the lake to hide him from the worms which comes out of nowhere. Honestly, for a body snatchers movie I wanted more paranoia, more tense feelings of isolation, something. But this movie takes too long to get going and by the time it does it's over.
If you're looking for a recommendation for Honeymoon you aren't going to get it from me, but don't let me decide for you either. As of this writing you can watch Honeymoon on Hulu and if you ask me, it's almost always good to watch a movie you've never seen before just so you can say you've watched it (and so we can talk about it because yes I'm totally being selfish right now.) If you have seen Honeymoon leave me a comment with your thoughts!