'Honey Bunch' Is a Beautifully Confusing Mind-Bender

Stylish, disturbing, and deliberately disorienting.

Honey Bunch is constantly balancing between horrifying and absurd, sincere and ridiculous - and it never lets you truly settle.

Synopsis

When Diana wakes from a coma with memory loss, she and her husband seek experimental treatments at a remote facility. As the procedures intensify, their marriage is put to the test and Diana begins to question her husband's true motives.

Good Points

• Brilliant opening sequence

• Strong performances from Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie

• The use of time and perspective

• Striking esthetic

• Ambitious second-half pivot

• Genuinely disturbing hallucinatory sequences

Bad Points

• Slow first half drags at times

• Some red herrings feel too underdeveloped

• Occasional style-over-substance moments

Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie

Glowicki and Petrie are both really strong, and, even though the story leans on familiar horror devices, and the narrative starts shall we say bending reality, they both feel steady enough to glue everything together.

It’s a movie that plays very aggressively with perspective and chronology - a character leaves a room and returns in a way that feels like seconds, or hours - and I will admit I didn’t always fully understand what I was seeing, but I guess the whole point is that the confusion mirrors Diana’s mental state?

It’s a film I will have to watch again at some point though for sure.

But anyway…

The first half is patient

The pacing is undeniably slow at first - therapy sessions, strange interactions, all hints at backstory - but some of it dragged for me, especially when potential fizzled out instead of escalating.

But at the same time, that restraint does help build the atmosphere, featuring a slow uunease that creeps rather than explodes, so I get it.

And I loved the visuals too - soft lighting, sudden zooms, long drifting shots - and at times I did feel like the style might have threatened to overpower the substance, and at times it did, but it wasn’t a major issue.

Halfway through, everything shifts.

Around the midpoint, the film pivots. or shall I say, where the emotional stakes deepen., and the hallucinatory sequences become darker and more disturbing, where you begin to realize that psychologically, it is far more complex than the surface suggests.

And when I say realize, I mean you sort of get it, but you also don’t as not every narrative thread resolves neatly, and some red herrings feel like they’re there more to disorient than to pay off, which can be frustrating.

Nut I also admire how willing the film is to take risks, as it lets the story wander into a strange, uncomfortable territory, and by the end, the film loops back on earlier moments, reframing them with new context, and what initially might have felt obscure, gained meaning once the broader shape of the story emerged.

Honey Bunch demands attention, as you need to absorb its details the best you can, and let it destabilize you a little.

And then rewatch it at some point.

Final Verdict

It’s confusing at times, but I also found it rewarding - a film that embraces discomfort, ambiguity, and aesthetic boldness, and it’s a puzzle box that refuses to be easily solved.