'A Wounded Fawn,' a Shocking Horror Movie of Feminist Fury and Greek Mythology, Wows at Tribeca

[Celerity]

Director Travis Stevens’ latest is a dazzling tribute to grindhouse and giallo films about a woman taken to a remote cabin by her lover only to discover that he’s out of his mind.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-wounded-fawn-a-shocking-horror-movie-of-feminist-fury-and-greek-mythology-wows-the-tribeca-film-festival



Homages to horror cinema of the 1970s and 1980s are legion, be it high-profile efforts like James Wan’s The Conjuring and Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria or indies such as The Void, The House of the Devil, and Almost Human. Yet even when they attempt to duplicate the grungy, scratchy lo-fi vibe of those eras’ domestic B-movies and foreign imports, they often teeter on the edge of—if not outright indulge in—pantomime that’s more affected than authentic. Not so, thankfully, with A Wounded Fawn, writer/director Travis Stevens’ follow-up to last year’s sturdy Jakob’s Wife, which is rough around the edges in all the best ways. Fierce, jagged and surreally sinister, it’s a spiritual companion piece to its illustrious grindhouse and giallo predecessors that gets not only their look but also their mood right, culminating in a prolonged finale of mind-bending insanity.

Premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival before debuting on Shudder later this year, A Wounded Fawn opens with a quote from Leonora Carrington (“I suddenly became aware that I was both mortal and touchable and that I could be destroyed”), whose book Surrealism, Alchemy and Art is later spied in a stack. The 20th century artist’s surrealist feminist soul courses through the veins of Stevens’ film, which commences with auction house bidding on a sculpture of The Wrath of the Erinyes, the three Furies from Greek mythology who punished men for their crimes. They’re goddesses of vengeance and retribution, and the statue in question is ultimately purchased by Kate (Malin Barr), who celebrates her triumph alone with a glass of bubbly in her tastefully furnished New York City apartment. Her one-woman party, however, is interrupted by rival bidder Bruce (Josh Ruben), who materializes on her doorstep late at night to make an offer she can’t refuse: His employer is willing to fork over double what Kate paid for The Wrath of the Erinyes, and he’ll throw in a hefty additional percentage for her trouble.

Kate’s agreement to this deal nets her far more than she bargained for, and afterward, A Wounded Fawn shifts its attention to Meredith (Sarah Lind), a single woman still recovering from a prior abusive relationship. To the delight of her friends, Meredith announces that she’s embarking on a weekend getaway to get laid with a new mystery man, and as Stevens quickly reveals, that figure is Bruce, who’s traded in his designer suit for a baseball cap and flannel jacket. Together, they’re going to spend a few days outside the city at Bruce’s remote cabin, and it’s apparent from their initial interactions that Meredith is smitten with her new beau, whose good-natured friendliness is tinged with a strange undercurrent of instability. Consequently, when a giant Doberman races past Meredith on the sidewalk as she’s strolling toward Bruce’s car, it resounds as a warning—albeit one that’s ignored by Meredith, who’s happily whisked away by Bruce to parts unknown.

By this early stage in A Wounded Fawn, Bruce’s malevolence has already been well-established, and it begins seeping out from behind his cheery façade during their drive, when he refuses to pull over at a roadside market so Meredith can use the bathroom and buy some candy. The flags fluttering in the wind at that stand are merely one of countless instances in which shades of red suggest impending demonic danger and violence, and Stevens marries such color-coding to an aesthetic of grainy, scratchy visuals wracked by compositional tension. While his images—and camera movements—are clearly going for a throwback vibe, there’s no self-conscious preciousness to them; on the contrary, their coarseness feels genuine and generates anxiety and friction, as when Stevens cuts from a master shot of Meredith staring out a window to a close-up of her doing the same, and the two sights don’t quite match—a deliberate gesture that suggests disorder and derangement lurking beneath ordinary surfaces.

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[North Shore Chicago]

1. Sounds fascinating!

[North Shore Chicago]

2. Unable to find a trailer.

Drat!