Watching horror movies about camping seems as much a beloved pastime as actual camping. The concept of campers being terrorized by someone or something in the great outdoors has timeless appeal. And Consumed, directed by Mitchell Altieri and written by David Calbert, boasts all the expected characteristics: a foreboding forest setting, unnatural forces hiding within nature, and people tapping into their primal instincts so they can survive. That’s all good and fine if standards for these kinds of movies are low to begin with, but for anyone hoping for a story that goes off the well-beaten path, then they might be better off looking elsewhere for their fill of camping horror.
Consumed immediately starts to feel familiar as the movie introduces its two main characters: city folks Beth (Courtney Halverson) and husband Jay (Mark Famiglietti) came out to the woods for some peace and quiet, only to then end up at each other’s throats over problems they failed to resolve at home. Jay is fairly cheerful at first, whereas Beth is dour. She is also resentful of any sort of help offered her way. So, yes, it’s going to be that kind of camping trip. However, the cause of Beth’s unhappiness soon comes out — the movie reinforces that fact with intermittent and surreal sequences of unsettling imagery — and the hanging cloud over this retreat grows only bigger and darker.
Before long, Consumed introduces the story’s otherworldly threat. What that is remains unknown and relatively unseen at first; the real deal is shown from afar and veiled by a swarm of black smoke most of the time. Nevertheless, this creature eventually leads to Beth and Jay meeting the movie’s other danger: a forest dweller and hunter named Quinn (Devon Sawa). Fans of Sawa’s Hunter Hunter will be happy to see him in another offering of wilderness-set fear fare, but his character here is rather different.
The choice of creature here is disappointingly uninspired. Other recent movies have had the same impulse or desire, and the results have been varied. That being said, Consumed does get points for its fairly distinct depiction of said creature. The mix of practical effects and CGI creates a surreal specimen that the director wisely chose to keep off screen until necessary. Otherwise, the ambiguous form shown throughout induces more dread. Seeing the supernatural antagonist in its full glory just doesn’t quite compare.
Consumed would not be the first horror movie to insert a tangible monster — or in many cases, a symbolic one — into a meditation on pain, grief and trauma. And it most certainly will not be the last. This story, though, makes an admirable effort to connect the human drama with the uncanny, yet it still comes up short in the end. And even worse, the execution is flat. That’s not saying the cast didn’t do its best; Halverson provides a sturdy performance, as does genre veteran Sawa; Famiglietti is too sidelined to really evaluate his role. But in the end, it’s often challenging to engage with this movie, on account of its sterile handling and routine story.
Consumed releases in select theaters and on digital starting on August 16.
Pictured: Consumed poster courtesy of Brainstorm Media.
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