Horror Movie Review: Blood Honey (2018)

Blood Honey is a Mystery, Thriller/Horror from TriCoast Studios, directed by Jeff Kopas. Jenibel is tortured by the memory of a childhood trauma. She returns after a decade to her family’s isolated Bee Apiary to assist her siblings with their dying father. Jenibel soon finds herself stuck in a life threatening nightmare.

The opening to Blood Honey is strong. We witness two children on an island enjoying some fireworks. The young girl turns, only to see her mother standing on the edge of a distant water tower. She jumps, killing herself in the process. Many years later, the girl has grown up and is on her way back to the island in an attempt to reconcile with her father before he dies. Jenibel receives a warm welcome, especially from her younger sister Linda. She meets with her father (Gil Bellows) but it doesn’t go particularly well.

Later on, he wakes Jenibel in the middle of the night and takes her to a distant cluster of bee hives. There, he commits suicide by locking himself in with the bees after aggravating them. Before this, he makes Jenibel promise that she’ll sell the business. Also, he explains that he didn’t trust her brother enough to run things. Jenibel is devastated by seeing her father get stung to death, especially as they never got a chance to fix things. Linda just so happens to be there as well which troubles Jenibel. Linda has downs syndrome, Jenibel fears that she may struggle to understand what she has witnessed.

From then on, Jenibel makes her intentions to sell clear as to honour her father’s dying wish. However, her brother and the other residents disagree with her decision. Not long after, she becomes suspicious that somebody is poisoning her. This is because she begins having a series of distressing hallucinations. Jenibel fears that her life may be at risk so she attempts to flee the island with Linda.

Will she escape? Or is there more to it than meets the eye? Check out Blood Honey to find out.

As I mentioned above, the opening in Blood Honey is strong. I found it to be very intriguing, even if the setup isn’t exactly unlike anything I’ve already seen before. Unfortunately, it fails to capitalize on this small amount of momentum. The film becomes very slow with plenty of scenes where little to nothing happens. It introduces a lot of characters but does a poor job of explaining who they are or how they are acquainted with Jenibel. Also, Jenibel?

Just like how you’re forced to make assumptions about characters. The exact same thing can be said about many of the plot points in the film. Not much is shown or explained particularly well, you’ll have to figure a lot out for yourself. This makes the whole thing quite hard to follow which is strange considering the basic premise. Still, the story and setup are good. They just feel almost unfinished or like parts are missing.

A couple of aspects I can be entirely positive about is the location and scenery show in the film, it’s beautiful. Also, on the whole I found the acting to be really good considering. Sadly, there is some very mediocre CGI on display. It gets the point across but CG bees never look good.

Blood Honey may be listed as a horror movie but I assure you it’s not. If it is meant to be then I will say that it is extremely lacking in horror elements. I’d be more likely to list it as a competently made Thriller.

There is a decent twist at the end of the tale but the slow, confusing build makes it feel unearned and lacking impact. Overall, Blood Honey isn’t a bad movie but it will leave you with a sort of “meh” feeling when the credits roll. It has budgetary limitations and you can tell they’re trying, I won’t be too harsh.