A Wounded Fawn

 A Wounded Fawn begins with someone recounting the Greek myth of the Erinyes - the Furies - as a statue portraying them hounding a man is sold at auction. A woman (Malin Barr) wins it in a heated bidding war, only to be murdered later that night and have the piece stolen by Bruce (Josh Ruben), one of the other bidders.

 We then cut to Meredith (Sarah Lind), a museum curator who's recovering from a long abusive relationship. She's decided to finally try her luck with another guy... who, of course turns out to be Bruce. I'm sorry, lady, that's some rotten luck. Did I mention he kills at the behest of a humanoid owl? Because he totally does. Anyhow; she's agreed to go with him to his cabin, and as soon as they meet we get our first jump scare as a surprise Doberman violently runs past her, a wonderfully giallo touch.

 During the long ride to the cabin, and later in it, Meredith starts picking up some warning flags from her beau (Lind's acting as she recognizes them and decides to play them down is really good), but, more importantly, as soon as they arrive at the cabin she gets hallucinations warning her to get the hell away.

 This whole section is beautifully put together, with the tension methodically ratcheting up as Meredith is progressively freaked out by the weirdness going on around her, and Bruce lets more and more cracks show in his façade.

 And then... something happens, and the movie enters Act II, which is where all the weird shit happens, and Bruce is, yes, accosted by the furies in enthusiastically surrealistic ways.

 I wish I could say I liked the movie. I was hooked for the duration of the first half, the more conventional bit, and was intrigued by the unexpected turn, but the movie completely lost me after that. I tend to like surrealism, but a lot of the imagery on display here didn't really do it for me, and while there are many mythological references, either I didn't get enough of the rest, or the movie really does get pretty random, so it wasn't fun to think about in the same way that, say, The Lighthouse is.

 Technically, it's kind of amazing. Director Travis Stevens captures the look and feel of 70's more arty (read: European) horror movies with an uncanny eye for detail, including the bright tone of arterial blood. The cinematography (by Ksusha Genenfeld) is incredible.
 It's also audacious as hell, but the risk with that is that if people are not engaging with what you're doing, it's going to seem ridiculous. You can guess which camp I fell in. This probably will reflect poorly on me, but I laughed at several points in the movie at some of the... more outré scenes. I mean, just look at this guy!

I like this one- it looks like a rejected Psycho Goreman character!

I feel a bit bad for making fun of something that'd probably be a whole lot better with more budget, but a lot of the problems are conceptual; I'm feel pretty comfortable with saying projections on flapping cloth will never be scary. 

 The main thing, though, is that I don't find what happens in the back half interesting. For a while there the movie felt gloriously unmoored, but then the only thing that happens is basically the only thing that could happen. That could have worked, but neither the ideas (except an interview-like conversation with Bruce) nor the visuals (except a really nice looking flapping tarp scene) did for me, so there you go.