Treatment facilities are naturally captivating horror settings. They place characters in spaces meant to heal yet designed to restrict, creating fertile ground for tension. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest turned that contradiction into a study of institutional power and the resilience of the human spirit. Robert Altman’s 3 Women used it to explore shifting identities. In contrast, Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island found the perfect stage for a puzzle-box thriller about memory and perception. Even Gore Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness showed how seductive the setting could be visually, even as its narrative faltered. Into this lineage comes Honey Bunch, directed by Canadian duo Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. The film carries echoes of all those examples, capturing mood and aesthetic with precision while reaching toward many themes and ideas. Some of those attempts are compelling, others less so, but together they create a consistently atmospheric work, even if not fully successful.
The story follows Diana, a woman recovering from a car accident that has left her unable to recall the events leading up to it. She is admitted to a secluded treatment center, accompanied by her husband Homer, who stays by her side as she undergoes advanced therapy designed to rebuild her body and restore her memory. Soon, signs emerge that the clinic is not what it seems, and Diana’s recovery may come at a hidden cost.
What impresses most at first is the film’s visual design. Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli shot with genuine 1970s lenses, even adding manual shake to drone footage to resemble helicopter shots from the era. The result often feels like a film transported directly from that decade. Atmosphere is heightened further by Andrea Boccadoro’s chilling score, whose eerie vocals create unsettling harmonies that make the hair on the back of your neck rise. The mansion’s hallways and the surrounding woods are rendered as ghostly, unnerving spaces. One striking image shows the forest ending at a sheer cliff, as if the world itself comes to a halt at the edge of the facility. From the outset, the clinic is carefully established as both a place of healing and a source of dread, with the cold palette and enclosed spaces reinforcing its sense of claustrophobia.
That atmosphere extends into the performances. Jason Isaacs and Kate Dickie bring their usual gravitas in supporting roles, but the most affecting work comes from real-life couple Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie. Their intimacy lends Diana and Homer a lived-in quality, suggesting a shared history even when Diana cannot remember the details Homer recounts. That invisible connection strengthens the relationship on screen in ways performance alone could not.
At its best, the film uses this relationship to raise questions about care and control. How much of Diana’s treatment serves her needs, and how much reflects Homer’s desire to recreate the partner he once knew? These questions touch on memory, identity, and selfishness, yet the film struggles to fully explore them. Characters sometimes act in ways that feel more dictated by the script than by their psychology, and the story seems uncertain about how far it wants to push its provocations. The directors have mentioned drawing on personal experience, and that sincerity comes through, but it sometimes results in a collection of ideas rather than a focused statement. Subplots, including Isaacs’s arc, gesture toward richer territory but remain underdeveloped (had the girl been more involved in a pivotal decision, the statement could have been stronger and more thematically cohesive). The finale also struggles to land with the clarity and emotional power it clearly seeks.
Even with these shortcomings, Honey Bunch holds its grip for most of its runtime. The atmosphere is so carefully constructed that, like Diana, we feel trapped inside the clinic, compelled to see what is happening even as we long to escape. A few of the reveals are genuinely unnerving, and the unsettling mood never fully dissipates. As an entry in the treatment-facility horror tradition, it succeeds in tone and immersion, even if the deeper ideas slip through its grasp.
Still courtesy of TIFF and Elevation Pictures