After an array of indie hits as a producer (A Horrible Way To Die, Cheap Thrills, We Are Still Here) and a pair of well-received features as a director (Jakob’s Wife, Girl on the Third Floor), writer-director Travis Stevens aims his next horror-themed arrow at something more surreal, psychological, and rooted in mythology, with mixed but largely unnerving results.
A Wounded Fawn opens promisingly enough at an art auction where a small but notorious statue is on the block, one that has a history of freaking out many who look up at it. Art dealer Kate Horna (Malin Barr) wins the piece for a client and takes it home until she can ship it the next day. Before she can, she gets a ring at the door from one of the other dealers who was bidding against her, the charming Bruce Ernst (actor-filmmaker Josh Ruben, Werewolves Within), who offers her double the price to claim the statue for his client. She agrees and invites him in to begin the transaction when he notices a room bathed in red light in her house and he sees a towering creature staring at him from it. With little fanfare, he brutally kills Kate, revealing himself to be a rather expeditious serial killer.
Co-written by Stevens and Nathan Faudre, the film then jumps into the life of local museum curator Meredith Tanning (Sarah Lind), meeting with her therapist to discuss what life is like after finally fully shedding herself of a stalker-ish ex-boyfriend. She’s finally re-entering the dating pool and about to take a romantic getaway to a plush, secluded holiday house with none other than our new serial killer friend, who seems to be putting on his best face despite the signs that something isn’t quite right with the guy. Any time Bruce shows flashes of his less-than-stable side, Meredith is conflicted about whether she is being overly sensitive or if his vibe is off. But when she begins seeing strange things inside and outside the house, she demands to be taken home immediately, which kick starts Bruce’s own red-hued visions that always seem to lead to killing.
At this point in A Wounded Fawn, things go from murderous to something more artistically inclined, as some of the women that Bruce has killed begin haunting him in the guises of the Greek mythological creatures that he seems fixated on in the art he collects. Although the film waits a while to confirm it, it seems clear that what he’s seeing is all in his head. But it leads him down a visually adventurous path of self-harm, and before long, Bruce is full on fighting the demons he believes are in him, giving him no choice but to kill these women that he genuinely likes. The Meredith-voiced creature even interrogates him like a police officer might to find out what his patterns are and find out if he set out to kill her, why he chose her, and whether she ever stood a chance of surviving the wrath of the demons that control him (likely in his mind).
Ruben is a strong enough actor to pull off the highly conflicted Bruce, often screaming at himself when he senses a shift in the air around him, just before the creatures appear to him. It’s a fascinating approach to the serial killer genre to have so much introspection by someone other than a psychiatrist or profiler. Bruce has to confront his madness largely by himself, and it’s a battle he doesn’t seem strong enough to win.
As much as I’d love to talk about the movie’s final shot (which runs the entire length of the credits), I don’t think I should in any detail. But it begins as something horrific and turns into something you almost want to laugh at because it goes on to the point of making us uncomfortable. As frequently as I appreciate films that don’t answer every question to the point where there are none left to ask by the end, A Wounded Fawn could have used a bit more focus and clarity about its key inner battles, as well as the nature of the entities Bruce believes are plaguing him. Still, the visual stylings (on what I imagine was a limited budget) are solid and creepy without ever morphing into cheap horror antics (a common thread in Stevens’ films). Having no idea where things were going next went a long way toward holding my interest, so I applaud that and eagerly await to see where Stevens takes us next.
The film is now streaming exclusively on Shudder.
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