Body at Brighton Rock Review

The introduction is campy at best and cliche at worst. Of course the main character hates her job and is known by others to be on the short end of the stick with their supervisor. She's akin to every protagonist in a poorly made coming of age movie. Yet, there's growth. Once she's told to stay the night to guard the body she happened to stumble across, you can feel her apprehension. Paranoia sets in later, leading her to imagine a bear and mace herself while thinking it's a life or death situation. Every struggle she wins, she does so terrified and shaking, worried of what will come next. Throughout the movie, her character grows into one far more three dimensional than the archetype in the introduction.

Simple scares are utilized, hardly any jumpscares, relying on pitch black shots to get the viewer to grow anxious with Wendy as the night grows on, inviting them to imagine what might be lurking in the shadows waiting to attack. There's no elaborate monster, no iconic killer. Just the horror the viewer can imagine. And a bear.

This was a film my friend suggested to me after I mentioned I was interested in reviewing movies to discover what I liked, since I typically stick to slashers and classic possession horror. Thanks to them, I've discovered a growing fondness for horror that takes place in the wild, especially those that remove a religious and spiritual mystical quality movies like The VVitch and The Ritual have. Overall, I give it 4/5 stars. Definitely a movie I can see as a cult classic 20 years down the road.