So I've had this on my watchlist for a few months since hearing about it at the film festivals. I'm a horror fanatic and love good thrillers as well! This one got some decent reviews so I kept an eye out for it on streaming and it finally came to Hulu! Some of the reviewers said they couldn't get past the first few minutes and I can't say I don't understand why. It's slow and a little silly in the first 1/3 of the movie but that's kind of setting up the campy/80s vibe of the film. We get an introduction to our main character and pretty quickly discover her lack of forestry experience and common sense.
Nonetheless, I went into this movie expecting to maybe like it but not much else. And I think if you can do that then you'll enjoy the film. This movie created a good sense of dread in my opinion. Especially if you've ever been out in the woods alone at night, you know how dark it gets and how scary it can seem.
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thefreneticist29 July 2020I'd say this film was fine. Just fine, but that's averaging out between some bits which were hard to hang with and some which I felt were more than meets the eye. Fine may be better than most other reviews are giving it, but I stand by it. This was *fine*, and it's quite short. If you're already feeling relaxed, and you have an hour and a half with no competing options, then put on some popcorn and give it a chance.
Firstly, the technical stuff; Writing was utilitarian but not objectionable, direction was perfectly competent if not especially distinguished (I don't get what all the contempt is over, there), and the cinematography is sweeping and just lovely. Also, the use of practical effects over CGI in one very important scene made a huge difference to how in the moment with the character I ultimately stayed, and so I think the director made a great call on that front.
Now, for the *story* review (because, let's be honest, this is where 99% of the fur has flown in these many, many other, very *bad* reviews, so I want to give it the detail it deserves). [Warning: Significant Spoilers Ahead] So, the setup; Fledgeling National Park -staffer Wendy is 15(?) and kind of a not-so- hot mess, in fact she's barely holding down this job - apparently her *first* job - so naturally her boss hasn't bothered advancing her training beyond "host". And between the hopelessness, the inexperience, and Wendy also being saddled with the triple-whammy of what looks an awful lot like clinical Anxiety...well, it's not terribly surprising when we learn that Wendy's friends don't really have a lot of faith in her, competence-wise.
It's hard to hate them for this, but when Wendy learns of their lack of respect for her, it equally relatably stings - especially as it was only her offering to do something nice for one of those friends which brings this hard home truth into the daylight. And in the first of what will inevitably turn out to be a veritable cascade of poor decisions, Wendy responds - as many, even much more well-adjusted kids her age would - to this ego injury with an act of overcompensatory bravado.
Thus dropping herself in well and truly over her head when what would have been a simple trail-trip for a more experienced or knowledgeable hiker instead winds up with her lost and stranded in the feral backcountry, with night coming on, amidst cool temps and high bear alerts... Oh, and did we mention the dead body she happens across and makes the mistake of reporting, which means that now she is required by her boss - and higher authorities, besides - to babysit said potential crime-scene all night, with no phone, no shelter, no food...in fact the only thing she does have in surplus is mental health challenges?
The film honestly plays out for most of that night like a psychological thriller, with poor Wendy's situation going from bad to worse as she (in sequence); contaminates the scene: contaminates the scene worse: fails to convincingly project authority on the security side of her duties: fails at the most basic risk/threat analysis when confronted with obvious large-predator spoor: contaminates the scene worse: builds an uncontained fire atop a site blanketed with dead leaves, using her sole remaining Fire Safety Guide for kindling without giving it a quick revision first: wastes her only weapon: wastes her only potable *water*:, yeets her only hope for outside communication into the wild blue yonder.... And, yeah, it keeps going. And it is impossible to keep from getting frustrated with her, because once the bad choices start, they only seem to gather speed. No, it's not an unrealistic film about a rock-dumb protagonist, as some other reviews have claimed; it is instead, an uncomfortably realistic film about a woefully underprepared individual in extremely challenging circumstances rapidly losing logic to panic-mode, with the result that they go from "disorganised, intimidated and fragile" to "full-blown psychiatric meltdown" painfully swiftly, with predictable results for their higher functions and survival instincts.
So, it's frustrating. It's *excruciating*. It's all too easy to sympathise with Wendy's friends' lack of respect for her resilience or competance, watching how she fares. But this is the story we're being told; about Wendy, and how things fell apart, and she fell apart with them, and how those two became a vicious cycle which very *nearly* got her killed by her own panicked foolhardiness. Because those stories need telling, too, I guess. Not everyone magically becomes a hero under pressure. Not everyone is going to survive the speculative collapse of society. Some people will inevitably fold like deckchairs when external adversity shows up, and just because it's not the story we've been taught to normalise and to want to be fed, doesn't mean that that person's story isn't still worth telling. I think far more people these days would respond closer to Wendy than to Bear Grylls' than would ever like to have to be honest with themselves about that fact.
Wendy *does* get a little bit of a crucible moment, right as her long, dark literal night of the figurative soul drags miserably toward its end, where she does appear to have made some level of breakthrough.
Of course, even after having overcome the demons of her own roiling consciousness, she's still in the middle of nowhere, out of water and having - unfortunately in addition to some reasonably healthy exertion, as well as being up for most of the night - last eaten somewhere around 18 or so hours ago. So all of yesterday's, you know, legitimate *physical* dangers still remain to be contended with (with the exception of death by exposure) - only with the difficulty level ramped up, now, on account of said highkey caloric deficiency leading to weakness and loss of coordination. So naturally it's right about now that the filmmakers decide to bring *those* threats into the forefront, and when Wendy survives them long enough for the cavalry to finally arrive on the scene, it's still only about 15% survival-fueled in-the-moment -type badassery to something like 75% dumb luck/divine clemency.
But sometimes life is *genuinely* like that. Evidently, a lot of people believe that that's not terribly entertaining, but I don't know; while I spent my fair share of time hand-wringing and screen-shouting over Wendy's bald helplessness throughout the first part of the story, I was really pulling for her by the end, there. And minor though her breakthroughs may have been, they were still breakthroughs and they were still *hers*, and yeah, in the end, I think I do have to come down on the side of, "this is a story we don't often get shown, but maybe that's not actually a great thing."
We can't all be cool, calm and collected when things go suddenly pear-shaped on a genuinely existential level. It's not just that we can't all be A Hero; we can't even all be *The* Hero.
If you're a forewarned is forearmed sort of viewer, then after all this, you might want to consider giving this film, and it's blundering but very human protagonist, a chance. She might just surprise you.
I probably won't watch it again, but I ain't mad at it. -
Draysan-Jennings9 September 2019Kept my attention for most of the film. It could of been a lot worse. The ending was ok. Pretty cool twist but could of been put together a little better.
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S_Soma27 April 2019When all the yelling and arm waving is over and the dust has cleared, BODY AT BRIGHTON PARK is a very simple movie. A very young and inexperienced girl, who is little more than a tourist greeter at a state park, gets herself lost and in over her head out in the wilds of the park. Though the weather is rather mild and the scale of hardship she faces is minimal, her behavior borders on the criminally incompetent relative to the mild challenges she faces.
Out in the dark woods, alone except for the dead body she has stumbled across and is now tasked to watch over until more competent people arrive in the morning, she spends most of the night hallucinating frightening experiences. If she's not imagining the cadaver rising up as a zombie then she's squirting herself in the face with bear repellent.
Derp.
Towards the end of the movie we viewers have been so repeatedly sucked into her imagination-driven hallucinations that turn out to be nothing that when a REAL threat shows up, a large bear who wonders what a girly forest ranger might taste like, it takes us a while before we even believe that it's an actual threat THIS time.
At the very end of the picture, when the, ahem, "adults" have finally arrived to everybody's relief, including us viewers, we're given the "twist" that the random hiker she met a few times the previous evening and earlier that morning was actually the ghost of the dead man she'd been watching over all night. Ooo... Scary.
Given the fact that the meat of the movie is this girl's incompetence and runaway imagination, there isn't much to recommend the plot. The primary character is made so incompetent, an intentional character decision, that she becomes irritating. The repeated incarnations of every scary situation turning out to be "only a dream" gets boring.
Stylistically, while the scenery is beautiful, the movie is carried off with amateurish detail work. The beginning and ending credits look like a flashback nightmare out of the 70s. The spray coming out of the bear repellent can looks like somebody watched a 3 minute tutorial from YouTube on Adobe After Effects and then did a bad job of it. And so on.
While it's definitely not the worst movie you'll ever see, if you insist on watching it you should probably have some vacuuming or dishes or something productive to do at the same time so you don't come away feeling you've COMPLETELY wasted your time. -
Despite a Giallo aesthetic that doesn't suit the premise or setting, a one-dimensional and incompetent protagonist who's inexplicably superhuman when the plot requires her to be, abrupt shifts in tone and pacing, ongoing jump scares that are always telegraphed by the score (with only one that garnered any response in the theatre: uproarious laughter), a predictable third act, unresolved plot points that masquerade as red herrings, and a pointless twist ending with no setup, Body and Brighton Rock is actually a very fascinating film: it provides scientific proof of the theory of time dilation. At a mere 87 minutes, it feels like it's four hours long.
I get the sense that the screenplay was little more than a shot list. This is unfortunate, because there's no denying that director Roxanne Benjamin is a competent filmmaker. She attempts to establish her own style by recycling tried-and-true horror tropes, and there's some good ideas here. But technical aptitude is not the same as meaningful storytelling. The film is incredibly thin and would have worked best as a 20min short. -
zandertowne23 September 2019If you're going to have a movie with one character off by themselves for the majority of the run-time then there must be a lot of interesting things happening for the character to deal with, or the character must be particularly interesting. And it doesn't hurt if the actor is charismatic. This movie avoids all three of those options as if they were the plague. They make it clear (in fact it's necessary) that the main character is incompetent and stupid and all her actions will be thoughtless at best, and reckless at worst. But she's not interesting or involving or appealing to make time spent with her tolerable. And actually very little happens until the obvious dream sequences (not very inventive or gripping) and all of it is downright boring. It's a wasted hour and a half in the company of an irritating half-wit. If that's your idea of a good time, watch this film.
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ivan_dmitriev25 August 2019Depicting the first serious incident on the job of a fresh(wo)man Park Ranger.
It's a useful movie particularly for the urbanites, who would go to a National Park once and then say, "I want to become a park ranger, it's so easy and awesome".
All in all a good movie of a person confronted with their fears, in a realistic way, with some comedic moments, a type of a movie which is sorely lacking these days with overwrought overly serious "paranormal" horror or "crazed killer"-dominated genre.
A welcome breath of fresh forest air. -
harrywelsh-3463327 May 2019Bad acting, bad directing. Could have been so much better. The main character does things that a child of 10 wouldn't do. Disobeys everything she's told to do. More like a kids film than a thriller. My advice is steer clear. A b movie at best.
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themrsmccourt3 September 2019Ok, as someone that watches every horror and suspense movie that comes out, this was way better than some of the big budget garbage I've seen recently It kind of reminded me of the 80s slasher flicks set in the woods- and I absolutely love them. It's definitely worth watching and screaming at the screen when the lead does something incredibly dumb (which you know she will)
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celt00727 April 2019Waste of time . Bad direction for a thriller. Thought it was a comedy then a footloose type movie ..then I walked out. I suppose if you are a 13 year old kid and hanging out with friends this might appeal to you. Not for adults .
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kondratyevaanna13 February 2020I have never written any reviews here, but seeing all the low ratings given to this movie, I devided to add one. I think the movie is really underrated!!! Of course if you like hardcore horror movies with tons of blood, twenty monsters per minute etc. you'll be disappointed. This is a "soft" horror movie, but the best thing about it is that it is rather realistic.
A young ranger girl gets lost in the national park and what makes it even worse finds a dead body. It is already scary being in the forest alone, but spending a night in the open air near a dead body can make one go crazy. The movie looks into this behavior and state of mind and in my opinion it does it very well -
ewolfw28 August 2021Can't go wrong with Oingo Boino! A park ranger takes a risky role to prove she's not a fuckup. Then it starts to go wrong. The map is lost, then she is. Nice move from fun to panic. There's a nice 70s TVM kinda retro throwback feel to it, but C21st sensibilities. Her performance is top! Good creation of tense atmosphere as her situation keeps getting worse. Good flick, decent ending, just a slight feeling it could've been something more.
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westsideschl7 August 2019Within the first 30 seconds you'll know that this is going to be amongst the dumbest cheapest productions ever. You get cartoonish graphics worthy of the cheapest Saturday morning cartoons; terrible background music, and our park ranger sneaking into a morning assignment meeting. She is now off (in spiffy new backpack, shoes, attire w/lots of makeup) to post bear warning signs. Down the remote trail she actually dances while earbud listening to music from her iPhone - duh? hello bear, mountain lion. Finds a dead body & hallucinates whether it's alive or not - made no sense. Lots of FF for this one.
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discoking-3904329 April 2019Over acted, poor camera work and dramatic and sudden sound effects that kill the thin suspense story line of a girl lost in the woods with a corpse. Maybe this movie was someone's high school Essay that was converted into a low budget Movie or someone with a camcorder trying to make a movie.
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npjy8329 April 2019The movie started off like an 80s-90s type movie, with 80s-90s themed. The theme at the beginning didn't match the entire movie.
Having said that, it was a movie that kept you gripping the chair, and kept you intrigued... However, without spoiling the film, the ending made no sense to the actual story. If that was me, I would be traumatized for life.
The premise of the movie is that a young teenage girl is needing to toughen up - and has to spend the night in the woods next to a dead body in which she discovers. This apparently is a trial to toughen up the girl and give her life skills. The night scenes are very creepy, and disturbing, and the twist at the end I am in two minds whither I accept it or not.
There is good acting and bad acting in it.
Recommend if you fancy a nail biting movie, with a twist at the end. -
kirbylee70-599-52617924 September 2019It's difficult to make a truly original horror film. So much has been done before and fresh ideas are difficult to pull off no matter how talented the director. With that in mind BODY AT BRIGHTON ROCK is a movie that does its best but in the end is offers mediocre scares. At least director/writer Roxanne Benjamin deserves credit for trying.
Wendy (Karina Fontes) is a part-time park ranger at a major national park filled with beautiful countryside and mountainous terrain. Not as skilled as her friends she opts to trade one of them to cover replacing signs along the trails of one of the more difficult areas. All goes fine until she gets lost in those mountains and then comes across a dead body.
Near Brighton Rock on the map she calls in her location, at least where she thinks she is, and reports the body. Even though in an area with bears roaming around she's told that she will have to make camp and stay there with the body until the following morning, it's too late for a chopper to successfully land nearby.
She follows her instructions but then strange things begin happening. The first is that while on a nearby mountain top she sees someone checking out the body. She tells him to leave it alone and has a conversation with him. He tells her he lives nearby and that he saw the body. Eventually they part ways and he leaves her to her lone vigil.
It is during this night alone with a dead body nearby that things begin to happen. The question becomes are they really happening or is it an overactive imagination fueled by her surroundings. On top of that the question of her hallucinating the things she's seeing is brought forward. It's a harrowing night and one that she's not likely to forget but it is the twist at the end you won't see coming that elevates this film from what it was at the beginning.
Making a horror film that takes place in a national park (unless of course it's another teens getting killed by mad slasher flick) is not an easy task. It's even more difficult when you rely on a single character and a dead body to move the story forward. But Benjamin does an admirable job of making the film a bit of a frightener. Perhaps not for the die-hard horror fanatic but definitely for the more average film goer.
Fontes does a decent job here as well but it would be nice to see her in a meatier role before praising or condemning her as an actress. From what is seen here she has great potential. As for the rest of the cast their parts are small enough that they're not quite noticeable enough to comment on.
The end result is a movie that offers some chills and spills and a few quick laughs but mostly has you rooting for this new ranger. If you place yourself in her shoes you have to wonder if you would have chosen to spend the night with a dead body in the middle of bear infested woods or not. Let's hope none of us ever have to make that call and if so that you've not seen this movie beforehand. -
chaoticcowboys26 September 2020A girl with absolutely no common sense and no knowledge of the woods thinks its be a great idea to go out into the woods. Obviously she gets lost and then immediately starts hallucinating for whatever reason. She basically does everything you shouldn't do in that situation. Ultimately she gets attacked by a bear in the literally lamest bear attack in the history of bears. The search and rescue decide to leave her out there over night just because they don't want to be out at night, despite the modern abilities of helicopters, night vision, and thermal but whatever. Awful movie ultimately.
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cdnkelly18 August 2022I originally put it on as background noise while I cleaned the house and made a pizza. I was surprised at how well made it was. Easy to tell they put in a good effort. Scenery,camera angles, etc. Acting was better than expected too. I Give it a B+. Almost a low A movie. But worth a watch if you have time.
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TheLittleSongbird18 August 2019Really wanted to like 'Body at Brighton Rock' much more. Absolutely loved the concept, yes as one can tell good concept for films and television really do draw me in and it makes it hard to not expect a lot. The poster/cover for the film was quite appetising as well, those two things are two frequent reasons for wanting to watch something. Them and talented casts, when there is one or more actor/actress that more often than not leave a big impression on me in a good way.
After seeing 'Body at Brighton Rock' when it appeared as a recommendation (having seen a fair of low budget horrors and thrillers lately for completest sake), count me as another person who was very unimpressed by it. Was really hoping that it would be one of the few exceptions of films etc seen recently that actually lived up to their potential and exceeded them, but once again good potential is wasted and it is hard to not feel frustrated.
'Body at Brighton Rock' is not without marginal redeeming value. The scenery is both beautiful and atmospheric.
That cannot be said for the rest of the production values though, which had a constant rushed and chaotic look. The same can be said for the direction visually and dramatically it is not much better, pretty sluggish. The music does not add to the atmosphere at all, actually think it could have been used much less and been much more subtle because this was over-bearing stuff that didn't fit.
What there is of the dialogue is nothing to write home about, sounding like it was written in haste with no checking to see whether it flowed or made sense and that it was written with no heart. The story feels like one for a short film stretched to feature length, which severely hurt the momentum and made the film feel uneventful and padded. Tension is zero, sense is zero and surprises are zero.
Far too much familiar ground here executed very blandly. Wasn't interested or engaged by any of the characters, all of whom were sketchy and with a lot of illogical behaviour going on. The acting is not much better before, with a good deal of over-compensating.
Concluding, have seen worse but this didn't work at all. 2/10 -
kevway2 February 2022Okay, okay, it's not a threat to displace David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, nor Christopher Nolan, but Body at Brighton Rock is WAY better than most of the gainsayers contend here -- heaping stark, cold disdain upon this film, which is an allegory of the passage from childhood to maturity concentrated in under twenty-four hours. Seems that most of the vitriol is about the initial silliness of the main character, but the childishness is a vital element, a droll and banal beginning to a quest -- to discover inherent yet inchoate virtues deep inside, and slough off childish fears, to survive even the worst that life (and one's own anxieties) can throw at the unready. So, if the viewers take in the film on the film's terms and go with the flow, as silly and lame as the first half hour may be, they will start to appreciate how even the most inept and vapid youth may find inner resources beyond her own wildest fantasies. You GO, girl !!! I say that to our film's protagonist, and the director, (with all respect and no ill intent to "dis" with the gender reference). I mean it !!! Great Work!
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slapdog321 July 2019This Is a Movie To Watch And Expect To Not Be To Expectant, The Acting And Directing Wasn't as Bad as People Clai. I NJOYED It
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jasonreno-2636719 September 2019I watched it on Hulu. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT AHEAD. Picture of a bear and described as an inexperienced park ranger must guard a body overnight.
It's low budget immediately. Her peers don't really look like ranger material so cast struggles are obvious. Late for the meeting she swaps assignments with her friend and heads out hiking to post signs. Here come the problems. Why is she listening to music? Another ranger scares her without trying. Obviously, she needs to hear a bear and mountain lion approaching in a high risk area. She's supposed to be a ranger! Finds a body and gets scolded for moving it to check on him. Gets scolded for checking his campsite. Sleeps near body instead of in tent nearby. What was the burlap sack of blood in the tree? Fyi, branches don't look like a person walking around the tent either. Meets a man who creeps her out in the middle of nowhere and then never concerns herself with getting his name, his campsite location, or if he'll hurt her. He's gone from her mind. But not the dead body, who she hallucinates about randomly and sprays her pepper spray at nothing. Falls rock climbing a place she shouldn't be climbing. Gets slow motion attacked by a grizzly. And we find out the guy was his ghost because he had a phone just like the corpse's and the knife was there. His attack on her was a warning about the bear? Wth? -
Having been a trail hiker for all of two months or so, (Thank you, Louisa), I had a pretty good idea this story was going off the rails quickly when the novice park ranger Wendy (Karina Fontes) got lost rather quickly. Even I know enough now to follow the trail markers put in place by experienced trekkers, and this picture didn't even deign to offer any. Besides that, the script couldn't decide whether this was to be a fantasy or horror story, so it mixes in a little of both, what with a dead body, a snarling zombie, a lantern that appears out of nowhere, and a potentially dangerous wanderer in the woods who winds up falling off a cliff to complete the story's weird loop. I guess you can't fault the inexperienced writer and director Roxanne Benjamin; this was only her first full length feature film, so going by that, this was a laudable effort. It was certainly a lot better than Peter Jackson's earliest film clunkers like "Dead Alive" and "Bad Taste", and he went on to direct the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, so there's always hope. This picture might have fared better as a truncated story with a destination like 'The Twilight Zone' or 'Tales From the Crypt'. In either venue it would have been right at home.
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Fortressofdoors20 October 2019These reviews are correct, except the high scoring ones. Everything here was done with the poorest production levels, from the opening credits, to the closing credits. Everything in between is Nickelodeon quality. The budget must have been about a thousand dollars and the "actors" getting paid with free pizza. Yes, it's that bad.