Mostly featuring a single performer on screen, Kd Amond’s cabin fever horror unspools as one long monologue. The formal gambit has a literary, theatrical feel – which is appropriate enough as the plot revolves around Faye (Sarah Zanotti), a popular self-help author suffering from a grievous writer’s block. Yet, this is no simple case of procrastination: sent by her publisher to a remote lodge for a writing retreat, Faye is forced to confront her mental turmoil following the loss of her husband Jacob. What follows are live Instagram rantings, one-sided conversations with her deceased partner, and even drunken taunting of unseen evil spirits.
For a genre that depends primarily on atmosphere and mood, this is an unusually talky horror: Faye’s psychological spiral in the cabin is intercut with her sitting on stage and recalling various life chapters, information served up to flesh out her relationship with Jacob. The film is divided into chapters as well, with each title card sporting supposedly witty aphorisms such as, “tonight’s special: deja vu … with a side of depression”. These headings may be playful digs at the twee prose of self-help literature, yet they also inadvertently reflect the relentless wordiness of the script, which is occasionally funny and mostly trite.
Zanotti, who also co-writes the script, manages to deliver jabs at influencer culture with a self-deprecating viciousness, but she falters during the more dramatic moments where the film shifts gear into an intense exorcism of grief. The sloppy visuals, typified by the harsh and ugly colour grading, is very much to the film’s detriment. With Zanotti’s comedic chops, Faye might have actually worked better as a satire on the cult of wellness; as a horror film, it is woefully ineffective.
• Faye is released on 9 May on digital platforms.
