Film

Honeydew

Name: Honeydew
Genre: Horror
Released: 2021
Cast: Sawyer Spielberg, Malin Barr, Barbara Kingsley, Jamie Bradley, Lena Dunham

Horror
Very dark

Honeydew is a slow-burn body horror film that treats rural isolation and family secrets like a festering wound. Shot in a deliberately flat, unnerving palette, it watches a young couple unravel after taking shelter with a farmer and her unsettling son. It's for viewers who prefer dread to jump scares, and who find genuine discomfort more interesting than gore.

TMDb rating

2.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like slow-burn rural dread where the unease builds from small wrongnesses in ordinary food, weather and manners rather than jump scares.

Skip it if you want plot momentum, because its hazy, deliberately meandering pace stretches a fairly thin premise across nearly two hours and will feel sluggish to many.

What it asks of you: Patience first: long stretches of quiet, a steady unhurried build, and a dread that gathers slowly rather than arriving in bursts.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Wailing2016

A Korean masterpiece that builds paranoia and uncertainty until you can't trust anyone. Like Honeydew, it traps characters in an inescapable nightmare of their own making, with creeping biological wrongness at its core.

But It's 2 hours 36 minutes and deliberately obscures what's really happening. Some viewers find this frustrating rather than compelling.

It Comes at Night2017

Another claustrophobic nightmare about strangers in a house, where the real horror is what people do to each other under stress. The dread accumulates with the same patient inevitability as Honeydew.

But Almost no action for most of the runtime. If you need momentum or answers, this will feel like nothing happens.

Starry Eyes2014

Body horror that uses physical transformation as metaphor for ambition and corruption. Like Honeydew, it's unflinching about what can happen to a person in isolation, with mounting grotesqueness that gets under your skin.

But The body stuff is genuinely ugly and unsettling. This isn't stylish horror; it's meant to make you queasy.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Honeydew

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

House1977

Both films use an enclosed space and isolation to trigger physical and psychological corruption, treating the body as a text that writes its own horror.

A Japanese surrealist nightmare where a house becomes a character, consuming visitors through logic-defying body horror and dream-state pacing. Like Honeydew, it trusts the viewer to sit with strangeness rather than explain it, and finds horror in the biological grotesque.

But Made in 1977, it's deliberately artificial and cartoonish at times. The aesthetic is so unreal that some find it silly rather than scary.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos crafts a slow, airless nightmare where hospitality becomes a trap. Like Honeydew, it's hypnotic and off-kilter, with an atmosphere so thick you feel trapped in the frame.

But The dialogue is stilted and artificial, which works thematically but can feel pretentious. Some find it cold rather than involving.

Midsommar2019

Ari Aster's daylight horror about isolation in an insular community. Visually stunning but deeply unsettling, with the same sense that outsiders have stumbled into a closed system that won't let them leave.

But At 2 hours 27 minutes, it's lengthy, and some plot threads feel padded. The beauty of it can distract from the narrative momentum.

Under the Skin2014

A hypnotic, alien film about predation and human vulnerability. Like Honeydew, it's deliberately paced, visually stark, and makes you deeply uncomfortable through suggestion rather than exposition.

But There's minimal dialogue and plot. It's an experience, not a story. Many viewers find it boring or pretentious.

A Dark Song2016

Two people trapped in a house together, with mounting psychological fracture and body horror. It shares Honeydew's commitment to intimate dread and the nightmare logic of grief made visible.

But The pacing is glacial and the payoff is spiritual rather than visceral. Some find it self-indulgent.

Caveat2021

A lo-fi Irish folk-horror about a man hired to watch an island house. Deliberately obscure and nightmarish, with the same patient, creeping sense of wrongness that makes Honeydew work.

But The atmosphere is the whole point—if you need plot clarity or purpose, you'll find it frustratingly vague.

Come True2020

Both films are less interested in explaining their horror than in making you feel it physically. The wrongness is embodied, not explained.

A sci-fi horror about a sleep study that dissolves into pharmaceutical body horror. Uses the same cold, flat visual style as Honeydew to make the ordinary deeply uncanny, with infection spreading through the mundane.

But The plot is secondary to atmosphere and image. If you want narrative sense, you'll be frustrated by the dreamlike logic.

Lake Mungo2009

Both films use constraint (found footage here, single location there) to amplify dread. They suggest that the real horror is what families do to themselves when no one's watching.

A mockumentary about a family unraveling after their daughter's death, told through found footage and interviews. Like Honeydew, it finds deep horror in isolation, family secrets, and what's hidden in plain sight. Achingly sad and genuinely unsettling.

But It's a faux-documentary, which some find cheap. The revelations come late, and if you go in expecting conventional horror beats, you'll be disappointed.