EIFF Exclusive Review: Body at Brighton Rock

Body at Brighton Rock is a horror film. However, it’s not a very well executed one. There are a lot of jump scares in all the right places: a hand on the shoulder, a loud noise, someone jumps out from the bushes. When well-executed, the jump scare can be very effective. A prime example is in Jaws, or in The Shining. However, for the case of Body at Brighton Rock, the jump scare is used as a lazy way to keep the viewer awake, rather than actually scaring them. As a result, you walk away from this film feeling deeply unsatisfied.

The film’s narrative is simple. Wendy (Karina Fontes), a part-time summer employee at a mountainous state park, takes on a rough trail assignment at the end of the season. Wendy is determined to prove to her friends that she’s capable of doing her job. However, she ends up taking a wrong turn, only to stumble upon what might be a potential crime scene. Wendy is instructed to stay with the body until help comes in the morning. Granted, that sounds like an excellent premise on paper. The issue is that this could have been such a neat little short film. Instead, the premise is dragged out for 90 excruciating minutes.

To begin this review, there are a few positive comments to be made. As stated above, the actual premise of the film is intriguing. The main performance by Karina Fontes is very good, as she does her best with the material she has been provided. The film’s cinematography is impressive and manages to capture the natural beauty of the location. And, while the budget is quite low, the film is still visually pleasing. Regardless of these aspects, they cannot help save a very monotonous and vacuous film from falling flat on its face.

When asked about the decisions the main characters make, director Roxanne Benjamin has gone on record stating that every decision mirrored one she made whilst she worked in the wilderness herself. The issue with this is that Wendy doesn’t exactly react in the way a person would in their situation. She breaks her only form of communication, deliberately cross contaminates a possible crime scene and alert attention to themselves from a possible murderer (played by Casey Adams). By some miracle, Wendy manages to survive mishap after mishap by sheer luck, and after a while, it becomes exhausting watching this all unfold on screen.

In an interview, Benjamin stated how she drew inspiration from films such as Cast Away and All is Lost. Both are very fine films, the main character is mostly alone and must survive terrible feats – whether it be the case of being marooned on a desert island or facing a storm. The issue here is that Wendy must simply survive one night in the wild with a dead body. We know that she will be rescued. The fact that the characters in Cast Away and All is Lost are in situations that are out of their control, which means that we are fully invested in their tales of survival.

Wendy ends up in this situation down to her sheer ignorance and lack of experience in the wild. If she had come across the man still alive (and forced to make the decision of helping him or choosing her own survival), that would have made for a far more interesting and complex narrative about questioning one’s humanity. Benjamin doesn’t give us the luxury of a backstory to the character of Wendy, which could have helped explain why she was so inexperienced and fearful of the woods. Having that level of depth and backstory for your character really helps the viewer to connect with their struggle, and will help us root for their survival.

It brings me little joy writing negative reviews, but sometimes it’s best to be honest, even if it may come across as brutal. And, while I am happy to see female filmmakers making films with female characters at the center of their core, I cannot help but express my disappointment with this film.

By no means is Body at Brighton Rock a terrible film, it’s just not a very remarkable one. Horror is more than just loud noises and dead bodies. Good horror will leave the audience shaking in their seats. Good horror will leave you looking over your shoulder as you walk out of the cinema back to your home. Good horror will leave you double-checking the lock on your front door before you go to sleep. If you are looking for a film that gives you this kind of experience, then it is safe to say that Body at Brighton Rock is not this film.