Travis Stevens' A Wounded Fawn is undoubtedly several notches above his Girl on the Third Floor. The 16mm visual style and gruesome-looking special effects are notable in a film with a straightforward Act One and a twisted Act Two. Art is a key factor in the film, and its finer layers are heavily soaked in it. The plot is simple: an art-obsessed serial-killer (slash thief) is seeking his next target, an art authenticator. But what begins as a slasher with a sprinkling of Greek mythology moves into a much darker, Hell Raiser-esque space, delving deep into surrealism, compounded by a supernatural recompense.
The surprise element here is whether it's the killer's mind playing games with him (after he gets hit in the head) or if he's really in a purgatory-like place where he's being psychologically tortured as punishment for the deadly sins he's committed. What also works are the two lead performances. Both Sarah Lind (as Meredith) and Josh Ruben (as Bruce) are pretty effective. While the film loses a little momentum in Act Two, the much-talked-about end credits sequence is a winner (akin to Pearl), both from the perspectives of storytelling and performances.
The surprise element here is whether it's the killer's mind playing games with him (after he gets hit in the head) or if he's really in a purgatory-like place where he's being psychologically tortured as punishment for the deadly sins he's committed. What also works are the two lead performances. Both Sarah Lind (as Meredith) and Josh Ruben (as Bruce) are pretty effective. While the film loses a little momentum in Act Two, the much-talked-about end credits sequence is a winner (akin to Pearl), both from the perspectives of storytelling and performances.