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Horror Review: Wounds

Caution! Spoilers ahead...

By A. N. Merchant Published 4 years ago 4 min read
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Wounds was released in Autumn last year and follows an excruciatingly unlikable bartender as he gets enthralled in a disturbing mystery that begins to unfold when he takes home a mobile phone left in the bar that he works at. The hour and 30 minute movie was directed by Babak Anvari and stars Armie Hammer, Zazie Beetz and Dakota Johnson as the main cast members whose characters are involved in a weak love triangle.

Wounds opens with an eerie quote from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness that perfectly explains the events that unfold for the main man Will.

“It had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception… and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.”

From the beginning of the movie it is clear that Will is 'hollow' and aligns very well with the typical jock horror trope, but a few years down the line when the jock has no ambition or career and is losing his charm that got him by in high school. No wonder then that this empty vessel of a man gets easily drawn towards the strange and supernatural phenomena occurring in the movie.

At the beginning of Wounds, Will is working a typical shift behind the bar at Rosie's, flirting with his friend Alicia who is drinking with her boyfriend. Some blatant underage drinkers are overlooked by the barman and a fight breaks out between two other customers, one of which uses a broken bottle as a weapon. The fight is broken up before things get really messy and the young drinkers flee, leaving behind a mobile phone.

Rather than keeping the phone behind the bar, our ever logical main man decides to take it home with him. The inconspicuous appearing phone starts receiving some disturbing text messages which Will just dismisses as a practical joke. His disinterested girlfriend Carrie appears as confused as viewers of the movie that he decided to bring the device home.

More bizarre and disturbing things happen all centred around the phone. Some spooky body horror images are sent, a piercing phone call that seems to cause physical rigidity and pain is received by Will and the phone appears to morph into a giant insect to force the bartender to drop it for its original owners to retrieve it.

Amidst these strange happenings, Will's girlfriend that seems to be absolutely sick of his shit, starts investigating the situation. She researches a book that appears in the back of one of the disturbing pictures and finds out that the events are in some way linked to a Gnostic ritual. We find out that this is an occultist ritual whereby a wound is used as a portal to connect with higher beings to achieve power and enlightenment.

While his intelligent girlfriend attempts to figure out what is going on and starts to be drawn in by a portal she finds on the internet, he uses his energy to drink himself into a pit and ignore what is happening while simultaneously trying to bed Alicia.

Wounds does well to build up tension from early on, dropping hints of supernatural happenings regularly throughout. This is one of the main features that provides hope that the movie will deliver by the end, despite the characters being difficult to watch due to having little personality and likeability.

The ideas sprinkled throughout Wounds are creepy and the Gnostic ritual leading to occult portals could make for really good viewing. The are some really freaky visuals flashed on screen for a few seconds throughout the film where you might expect a cheap jump scare to be which was really effective. Just when it seems as though the plot is going to come together and deliver on the horror teased throughout, the movie ends.

The final scene delivers somewhat by bringing the viewer an unusual and disturbing sequence that increases the heart rate and could have led to something even greater. Something greater never comes and the end credits role, leaving the viewer feeling disappointed.

The literary inspiration behind Wounds is brilliant and the ideas are full of potential, the story line isn't awful but definitely isn't executed particularly well. If the movie spent half as much time delivering on suspense as it did making the audience dislike all of the characters that appear for more than two minutes on screen, then it could have been a real knockout. I understand what Wounds is trying to achieve with its ambiguity but it doesn't seem to come off particularly well. Audience is left thinking about what they could have done with the last hour and a half, instead of wondering in awe about the plot of the movie.

Have you seen Wounds? I would love to know what you thought. Do you want to see more horror reviews? Let me know @curiouslycreepy on Twitter and @creepyandcurious on Instagram.

Stay creepy and curious, ghouls.

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About the Creator

A. N. Merchant

Sharing factual and fictional stories of the horrific, disgusting, macabre and frightfully peculiar. Appealing to the morbid curiosity within us all.

@creepyandcurious - Instagram

@curiouslycreepy - Twitter

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