Brightwood (2022)
8/10
"Time for lust, time for lie,Time to kiss your life goodbye."
19 December 2022
Warning: Spoilers
After finding the backwoods Twilight Zone-style Sci-Fi/ Horror To Freddy(2020-also reviewed) to be wonderful, I was pleased to spot, what sounded like a film (somewhat) from the same part of the genre, was going to be screened/ streamed at the Cine-Excess Film Festival, which led to me entering the brightwood.

View on the film:

Snapping out of time at the same time as their relationship snaps, Dana Berger and Max Woertendyke give excellent performance as Jen and Dan, thanks to them both capturing a worn-down casual attitude to the bickering, which gets twisted into a long cold shock of fear,as they find themselves unable to escape from the negative loop of their relationship and the location.

Brightened up in the woods,editor/ cinematographer/writer/ director Dane Elcar makes a wonderful feature film debut with a slithering atmosphere that keeps everything off- center, via stylish, low-hanging tracking and dolly shots sinking the audience into the loop Dan and Jen are trapped in.

Backed by a shimmering score from Jason Cook which captures the disappearance of moving time, Elcar cleverly dips Jen and Dan into a gradual awareness of the horror they are held in, wrapping the couple in altering film speeds, smash-cut close-ups, and eerie wide-shots,on the stilted woods and pond.

Dipping into the deep pond of their breaking romance, the screenplay by Elcar laces the Sci-Fi Horror backwoods dread with the nightmare of Dan and Jen struggling to break out of the relationship of negativity that the couple are stuck in a loop in, inside the bright wood.
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