Four young women watch their dreams become nightmares as a weekend getaway in the desert turns deadly.Four young women watch their dreams become nightmares as a weekend getaway in the desert turns deadly.Four young women watch their dreams become nightmares as a weekend getaway in the desert turns deadly.
Storyline
Featured review
Slow Burning Art House Horror
"Wonder Valley" is an extremely slow burning art house horror flick. The story involves four women -- Kari, who is sullen an withdrawn for reasons never fully explained, has invited her friends Cloudy and Jessica to go to her late aunt's house in the desert. Cloud brings along Sasha, who is apparently some sort of actress who is losing popularity. There is tension from the beginning between them, especially between Sasha and Kari. The group hike and explore, and they do some form of "natural" halucinogenic drug. Eventually, the relationships start to fall apart and strange and horrible things appear to be happening...
On the good side, the film is lush and well shot. All four actresses do an outstanding job making us feel the characters. The film has much of the "art house" motif, which may or may not be to some people's tastes. Events are unclear and there is definitely not a final denoumant that fully explains what has actually happened. And even though the film was written and directed by women, it's a little disheartening to see that there are some "woman always needs a man" tropes still there -- Kari's issues are hinted at being a breakup with a man, and the big relationship issue that splits the group and leads to the final act's events is definitely over a man.
On the whole, however, I found "Wonder Valley" to be entertaining and a nice change from a lot of the "people go on a trip and bad things happen" pattern. Worth a watch, IMO.
On the good side, the film is lush and well shot. All four actresses do an outstanding job making us feel the characters. The film has much of the "art house" motif, which may or may not be to some people's tastes. Events are unclear and there is definitely not a final denoumant that fully explains what has actually happened. And even though the film was written and directed by women, it's a little disheartening to see that there are some "woman always needs a man" tropes still there -- Kari's issues are hinted at being a breakup with a man, and the big relationship issue that splits the group and leads to the final act's events is definitely over a man.
On the whole, however, I found "Wonder Valley" to be entertaining and a nice change from a lot of the "people go on a trip and bad things happen" pattern. Worth a watch, IMO.
helpful•57
- stsinger
- Feb 1, 2020
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $150,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 12 minutes
- Color
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