Dark Nature (2022) User Reviews

Mabye this movie was meant for someone who can appreicate it ...

[phil_consult · 3/10 · 1 June 2023]

So the first 25 minutes of this movie is dedicated to making us understand the trauma and victim status of some of the characters. There is actually one point in the film where one character tells another the equivalent of "you're no kind of real victim, if you only knew my story". In short, trauma for dummies and how to deal with it. Unfortunately, by the time the horror show actually begins, I'm ready for the monster to kill and eat all of them, just so I don't have to hear anymore incessant whining about their problems.

Then there is the "Therapist Professor" who dishes out such cherished lines as "In order to obtain consciousness ..." when talking to one of the camping massacre attendees. I thought: "What the heck - I'm looking at her and she is clearly conscious.". That is indicative of the caliber of the writing.

I'll grant you: a monster that makes you relive your trauma in order to break down your defenses sounds rather novel. I guess it might have been, if I wasn't so busy already hating the characters, and cheering for their early demise.

What was the point of the story here?...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 27 May 2023]

I had never actually heard about this 2022 horror movie "Dark Nature" prior to sitting down in 2023 and watching it. All that I knew here was that it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen. And thus, of course I opted to give it a viewing.

Writers Berkley Brady and Tim Cairo put together a rather bland storyline. Sure, there were some nice enough aspects in the movie here and there throughout the course of the 85 minutes that the movie ran for. But ultimately, I have to say that the storyline in the movie felt rather pointless and without any actual meaningful contents. And that made it a somewhat dull viewing experience.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but they actresses and actors put on fair enough performances, though they had only so much to work with in terms of script and storyline.

Visually then "Dark Nature" was adequate. It was a not a movie that made a whole lot use of special effects to bring its storyline to the screen. The creature design was interesting enough, though I have honestly no clue as to what that creature was supposed to be.

Suitable for a single viewing, "Dark Nature" wasn't really all that impressive. And it is not a movie that I will be recommending for horror fans to rush out and get to watch. Nor is it a movie that I will ever pick up and watch a second time.

My rating of director Berkley Brady's 2022 movie lands on a four out of ten stars.

Honest review

[What-a-Punk · 5/10 · 18 July 2023]

This doesn't really succeed in any of the points it is trying to make.

It is not a good drama, because characters are not really explored.

It is not a good horror, because the creators didn't learn properly from 'Descent'.

It's obviously had potential, but eventually fell flat.

Even though creature is explained in bits and pieces, it's not really a good explanation.

The buildup is weak.

Indeed, the whole thing feels a bit pointless.

Overall, the movie is pretty simple and straightforward, in case you wondering to watch it or not, I must say that there are no interesting turns or unexpected occurrences.

I cannot say I enjoyed it. I was waiting for something to happen, waiting for movie to bloom, but it does not live up to any good expectations.

The basics are there, you can watch it before falling asleep, surely, but it won't be a movie to remember.

A sad sight, sad walks "to"💀💀💀

[Democrit · 3/10 · 17 August 2023]

At the outset of the movie, a conflict emerges, giving us hope that the film will at least meet our expectations. However, as the conflict unfolds, it becomes evident that this trendy approach offers nothing but vacuous and inconsequential dialogue, along with aimless pacing. Who is truly interested in watching the protagonists wander aimlessly? Unfortunately, the director seems to be fascinated by it.

Overall, it is yet another sorrowful horror film centered around a wild recluse lurking in the forest, preying on unsuspecting victims. While it is challenging to sympathize with the characters, there is an undeniable desire to see "him" apprehend everyone swiftly. The cinematography lacks originality, with the cameraman failing to capture the raw human fear, the arduous struggle, and the inherent beauty of the surrounding woods.

Trauma troll

[Howling_at_the_Moon_Reviews · 5/10 · 19 September 2023]

This was an interesting mix of folk horror and creature feature as an almost cautionary tale about facing your demons and overcoming past traumas. It had some solid potential however because of some missteps in execution, landed pretty middle of the road for me.

I thought the plot/concept was really interesting and was a foundation for something relatively different and pretty cool. They ended up negating a lot of their spook factor and intrigue by showing the "antagonist" like... WAY early and pretty much in full form. 25% of the time it was shown it looked creepy and dope. The other 75% it looked quite silly and drew me out of the moment. Regardless, there was still some pretty dope execution of sfx/makeup throughout.

The two lead best friends were quite good and really kept me in the moment and engaged. The doctor was good and everyone else was on the not so convincing side.

I do think they could have beefed up the story a bit more. Felt a little bit like a very long proof of concept. Despite this, as a whole I think this was pretty successful and certainly not a waste of time. Would recommend.

All-Female Reboot of The Ritual

[johnspringer-95440 · 4/10 · 3 October 2023]

A trauma therapy group follows their quack doctor into the Canadian wilderness on a survivalist excursion for which none of them are remotely qualified. It's unclear what the point of the excursion is supposed to be since the doctor's explanations are pop psychobabble gibberish. The characters' lack of preparedness or an objective helps explain their subsequent bickering, complaining and idiotic decisions; but it also makes them frustratingly unsympathetic. Suffice it to say the gang of intrepid idiots soon find themselves isolated and stalked by a standard horror trope until the rushed and inevitable finale. The Ritual (2017) wasn't great but it did essentially the same thing first, better and with more relatable characters.

Where is the ending... hello?

[FixedYourEnding · 4/10 · 13 September 2023]

"Dark Nature" is a Canadian horror film written and directed by Berkley Brady in her directorial debut. The film stars Hannah Emily Anderson, Helen Belay, Madison Walsh, Roseanne Supernault, and Kyra Harper all of which you probably never heard of.

The plot revolves around Joy, who is recovering from an abusive relationship. She joins her friend's therapy group on an isolated mountainous retreat. Led by a doctor with experimental methods, the group is soon forced to confront a monstrous entity and since this is a no-spoiler review this is the story in a nutshell.

I would say as a low-budget first attempt, "Dark Nature" has some good things going for it. The actors doing a good job of looking scared, especially towards the end of the movie, and there is a good plot progression. Unfortunately due to low-budget filming, cringe dialogue, overuse of flashbacks and an anticlimactic ending it is really loses a lot of points in my book.

The opening scene is surprisingly the worst offender in this entire movie, which is odd, since it should be the easiest one to film, inside an apartment (or a motel room or some sorts??) the dialogue is cringe and the camera work is horrendous. However it gets better later on and becomes somewhat watchable.

Again, without any major special effects, no CGI and limited number of cameras, Brady manages to product a reasonable film minus some dubious editing cuts. However I felt the ending could use a closure epilogue. It's not that it ends on a note where "viewers can figure it out", it just ends without a closure to the main character Joy. The movie is fairly short (sub 90 mins) so I think a 3-4 minute epilogue could do this film a lot of good and maybe even elevate my score from a 4 to a 5.

Considering everything this is one of those not fully-baked but watchable soft thrillers. My exact score is 44 / 100.

Pretty good horror flick

[kazzieloo-23677 · 6/10 · 14 September 2023]

Looking for a movie, and my husband wanted to skip this one because of the low IMDB rating. I wanted to give it a chance, and I'm glad I did.

Dark Nature is a slow boil, but it pays off. No use of CGI or any over-the-top special effects. It's s very physical movie, and I could feel the struggle the characters were going through. Camping in the Rockies is a great adventure, but one wrong move can mean life or death, and I could feel the heart-pounding fear in each character.

I knew absolutely nothing about this movie, and I suggest other viewers do the same. Everything was a surprise, and that added an extra chill.

As I said, slow boil, and then takes off.

as a horrorobsessive, this pleasantly surprised me, therefore ill be generous with a 9

[cat_schroedingers · 9/10 · 28 May 2023]

I think it is really important that u know as little about the movie as possible, if u are a fan of the horrorgenre.

If u wanna know if its ur cup of tea as a once in a while scarymovie consumer, it may still excite u after knowing more.

The reason i am writing this review tbh is, that i luckily watched the flick without checking the reviews on imdb, which i usually do these days (not in detail, but a quick scroll over) and when i came here checking out what ppl thought AFTER seeing it myself, i saw that the FIRST review that is shown has the BIGGEST SPOILER in its REVIEWTITLE. If i had seen that i would most likely not watched the movie. I hope the order will change with my added review.

Bc this movie had me guessing right up to the last scene. And thats what i enjoyed probably the most about it ^^

Underrated wilderness horror

[aronharde · 7/10 · 5 November 2023]

After seeing the low rating for this movie I was really surprised how much I liked it. I generally enjoy horror movies set in the wilderness and so I definitely had to check this one out. My expectations were rather low because of the rating but I went in with an open mind and by the end I was genuinely surprised.

The movie starts off by introducing us to our main character and her trauma induced by her ex and while I am actually tired of this whole trauma theme because it's really overused in horror, I think that in this case it made sense and I was not turned off by it.

After introducing us to the rest of the cast, our lead named Joy played by Hannah Emily Anderson keeps hearing her ex and even starts seeing him in the woods. She is sure that he is following them but other group members also see and hear things so the question is: Are they really followed by somebody or something? Honestly the movie really takes it's time before something happens and during that time you have to endure these characters talking about their past and getting to know each other. But towards the third act the movie really picks up momentum and goes into a direction I did not really expect. They are some great makeup effects and a decent amount of gore that I really didn't anticipate. While there are some character decisions that I didn't understand and probably only were made to serve the plot I enjoyed this movie overall and I think this low rating is not justified. Lower your expectations and give this one a try if you like horror movies set in the wildness. [6,5/10]

Metaphoric

[avindugunasinghe · 6/10 · 2 June 2023]

Dark Nature as a horror movie is not very special .There are interactions and scenes such as flashbacks that aren't timed well. There's an unsettled nature in story flow, an unhealthy tension. Focussing too much on the main antagonist leave the story crawling in the midst of it's runtime. However the rich visuals of mountainous forests is a plus, But Audio is not so much. What the movie does best is giving shape and colour to how trauma work it's slowness at the start picture the recess and the second half reemergence of trauma, that's clever work. Performances are neat. Dark Nature's creativity is what makes it worth.

Gripping

[zysqmq · 9/10 · 17 September 2023]

I didn't know what to expect from this film as there was such a wide range of reviews- but I found myself slowly getting pulled into the mood and mindset. This is not a typical horror movie - so I think that might be what some reviewers didn't like -but rather a story about trauma and its effects. There isn't horror for horror's sake so if you are looking for a "slasher " movie this isn't it. There is both ambiguity and humour as well as tension. There are no "perfect" characters in this movie- all of the women are flawed- and this is refreshing.

The locations and the cinematography are stunning and add to the sense of isolation that the characters experience. The story builds and develops organically and this is a movie worth watching.

For those who are familiar with the definition of shadow in Jungian psychology

[hmehdi-44591 · 6/10 · 23 June 2023]

For those of you who are familiar with the psychology of young you know that shadow is one of the important aspects of our lives. This movie was about facing your shadows and what they did was giving into that Forest which I believe symbolizes our inner self our unconscious and they faced their fears. The survivors actually could face their shadows and survived it. I'm not saying it was a brilliant movie but well the definition was really good. In my opinion that black creature kinda resembles our shadows and you don't have to necessarily kill it in one point at the end of the movie she went and she faced him and even she hugged him this is the true definition of Shadow we have to embrace our shadows and kiss them and get along with them but what was the point of burning it I don't know maybe we should ask the director anyways it wasn't a bad movie.

Psychological terror

[okpilak · 7/10 · 29 March 2024]

In the opening scene, Derek comes home to Joy, and he is in a very foul mood. Later he gets very violent, kills her dog and strangles her. We flash six months forward, and Joy's good friend Carmen has her and Tara going on a women's retreat in the Canadian Rockies, where the leader, Dr. Dunnley says risk = growth. All the women have suffered great trauma and are working on getting it behind them. There are a number of things that really made this movie for me. For one thing, they sold, through acting, just how strenuous portions of the trip were. As a person who has done backing in mountain wilderness, I really appreciated that they seem to have their pack worn properly, and also didn't suddenly pull out things that they could not have carried in their packs. I find all too often movies of a similar nature fail that, as the actors have never done anything like that before, and they never research how things would be. Through most of the movie, the demons seemed to be from within their own traumas. Derek would often play with his lighter, and Joy seemed to feel she heard the clicks of the lighter as if she was being tracked. Others had their own demons to cope with. But near the end, a more terrifying demon is unleashed.

Good scary story

[wvfempwolford · 8/10 · 14 September 2023]

Acting was good, not amateur. Stoty was compelling enough to watch till the end. Kudos to the actors who performed in obviously difficult circumstances. Not sure why the low ratings. This film rates well among similar survival, haunting scenarios. Somewhat a Blair Witch vibe, but with a satisfactory resolution. Some unresolved issues regarding the abusive husband's fate, but it doesn't detractfrom the whole survival story. Reminds me of another excellent similar film, The Ritual, which i highly recommend. The actors in this film did a great job, also the director writer. I would say stick with watching it.

Without you

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 4 January 2024]

No pun intended - the movie uses quite a few cliches to say the least. It is supposed to be empowering and if you suspend your disbelief I reckon this works well ... again not minding that it is quite on the nose on certain things. Not that those things do not exist in real life .. they do unfortunately.

That said, trying to get rid of the past ... while going on a trip generally speaking is a good thing. Unless you the trip you take is this one right here of course. Suspense is there and if you go with the flow it can be an interesting and suspenseful watch. A low budget horror movie that has some (few) interesting ideas ...

Really quite a good meditation on abuse and trauma

[michaeljbower-50526 · 8/10 · 7 November 2023]

This is a bit derivative and low budget, but the feelings it generated about dread, the way abuse traps its victims, the horror of never being free of it or feeling that you are free . . .it was quite well done. There needed to be some more dialog between the characters about what they were each going through, and the depth of the friendship of the main two women needed some more fleshing out as well - but the movie signaled enough about each of them, showing, not telling, to keep me invested and interested in them. The central story, the reveal, is very satisfying and scary and the wilderness is beautiful and vast.

A generally solid creature feature let down by several small flaws

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 8/10 · 26 May 2023]

Trying to move past a traumatic incident, a scared woman joins her friend on a wilderness retreat with several other similarly scarred women on the trip, but as they spend time trying to heal themselves they come to believe an even deadlier threat is stalking them throughout the woods.

Overall, this was a rather fun if problematic effort. Among its better features is a strong and wholly engaging central setup featuring quite a lot of really effective build-up of the main situation. Generating quite a lot of effective scenarios over the trauma of the initial incident that is obviously still mentally crippling her to the point of needing to go on the exercise as a means of helping to overcome the hurdle of what happened to her, the scenes of the trip being interrupted by the idea of someone seeing a shadowy figure in the woods or the sound of his eerie whispers and habit of flicking the lighter echoing in the harsh terrain all come off incredibly strong here. With the experience matched equally well with the atmospheric terrain and the hardships they endure while on their hiking trip, the first half here becomes quite effective at setting up a great overall scenario with people that are worth being around. With this in place, the film's turn into a creature feature in the second half is quite fun and has a lot to like. As the group is continuously interrupted in their attempts at healing with visions or hallucinations that someone or something is potentially stalking them in the area, the first encounters with it are justifiably written off as such without realizing the danger inherent in the creature looking to hunt them down. Once they realize it's there with some stellar ambush scenes in the woods taking group members away in terrifying scenarios not knowing it's out there until it's too late, the rest of this undertakes a fantastic series of cat and mouse chases that are extremely effective offering a couple of great kills, enough spots at the creature to get an idea of what it is and some solid reveals that make enough reasonable guesses at what's going on that there's a lot of likable elements at play, all of which are more than enough to make this a fun overall effort. That said, there are some big factors to hold this one down. One of the biggest drawbacks is the main genesis of the film in that the central setup that provided her with the trauma to overcome doesn't carry as much weight as it should. The idea of what he does is kept rather light and is off-screen more than anything, rendering a lot of this one to rely on her story about what happened to carry sympathy towards her without being informed of anything else beyond the one isolated incident that isn't as overt as it thinks it is. Moreover, this build-up provides the film with such a long setup that it takes an incredibly long time for it to even get to the creature action mentioned which is all pretty much isolated in the final half-hour anyway so you're stuck watching these characters interact for long periods of time without a lot of genuine horror happening. This might not be that big of a deal for some and can easily be overlooked but they do lower this one somewhat.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Thought it was gunna be bad ......

[quietneeded · 10/10 · 30 May 2023]

Oh, Angie, this movie turned out to be way better than I thought it would be. Besides the little creature, everything in it could possibly happen like really happened. Going out in the wilderness to help yourself to heal from trauma. That really happens having something attack you in the forest that really happens surviving it that really is this was a very Surprisingly good movie between the women talking and getting to know each other and their individual problems. They were trying to find a way to help Get over their individual traumas. Starting to feel like somethings get over their individual traumas. Some felt like something was out there, watching him, and nobody would believe them. Then look what happens. OK but I watch worth it.