Honeyspider

Director - John Hasty (Judith: The Night She Stayed Home)
Starring - Frank J. Aard (April Fool's Day), Anjali Alm-Basu, and Mariah Brown
Release Date - 2015
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "...let the blood of the dead inside"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     The Halloween movies continue here in my house.  I needed something to get the bad taste of Jack 'O' Slasher out of my mouth.  I turned to a new movie I was just sent to review from Brain Damage.  Honeyspider was a film I recently discovered when I caught wind that Vultra Video was releasing a limited run of the film on VHS.  I reached out to the film's Facebook page and spoke some with them about the film.  They were kind enough to send me a link to an online screener to check out but sometime after that Brain Damage hooked me up with an actual DVD.  The film looked like one of those films that perfectly embodies the Halloween holiday so I was very excited about checking it out.  Thanks guys for hooking Horror Society up with the film to review.  

     The film follows a young woman in college who is having a hard time taking care of herself and dealing with her family life.  It just happens to be her birthday and Halloween coincidentally but she is not in the mood to celebrate the occasion.  As she is leaving for work she runs into a professor who is acting strange and invades her personal space.  She dismisses the ordeal and goes to work where she is having a slow night.  Her friends convince her into forgetting her school work for the evening and party it up.  She agrees but there is something strange going on.  She starts to see strange things out the corner of her eye and before long she finds giant spiders on anything and everything along with a very strange symbol.  Soon her night is ruined when she is stalked by a masked killer and a strange cult.  

     Honeyspider is one of the many films that I randomly discover and know nothing about.  I saw several posters for the film which really excited me.  They were the perfect throwbacks to posters of yesteryear when advertisements actually cared about what they looked like and before they all looked the same.  I had heard several other horror fans refer to this one as a type of anthology.  Anthologies are all the same so how can it be a type of anthology?  Well, after watching the film I see what they are talking about but it is far from an anthology.  What they meant to say was this one was a bad ass flick that happens to have a short film in the film.  The acting in this one is amazing by the entire cast.  The film's lead, Mariah Brown, is spot on and really delivers an amazing job.  She is very convincing as the innocent girl next door with family problems.  It also helps that she is super cute.  The remainder of the cast is solid as well and their performances helps move the story along.  The story for this one has it's up and down.  The film has a pretty fun story involving a young, innocent girl on Halloween who finds herself in some serious shit involving a masked killer and a cult.  This was fun even though it is not that original but the story does become a bit confusing when it hit the movie playing in theaters.  This portion of the film just feels like filler and takes away from the overall impression left by the film.  Leaving this section out would have made the film shorter but I would prefer a shorter film that is on point over a longer film with scenes that feel out of place.  Finally, the film is not one that is caked in blood like most of you would prefer.  This film relies heavily on beautiful cinematography, tension, and amazing atmosphere to really drive the film home.  What the film lacks in blood it more than makes up for with amazing scenery.  Overall, Honeyspider is another great film that needs to be added to the Halloween rotation.  The film is able to pull together everything that makes Halloween fun and toss it into a horror film.  If you dig Halloween films that are not that bloody then you will enjoy this one.