Blood Honey (film)

Tortured by memories of childhood trauma, Jenibel returns, after a decade away, to her family's fly-in hunting lodge to assist her siblings with their dying father, only to find herself stuck in a life-threatening nightmare.

Summoned by her dying father, Jenibel Heath (Shenae Grimes-Beech), after a decade away, reluctantly returns to her beautiful island home, a remote fly-in hunting and fishing lodge. Waiting for her is bitter family dysfunction and the nightmare of her last childhood memory: the suicide of her mother. Soon, Jenibal finds herself burdened with selling off the family lodge, against the wishes of her family and friends. In a harrowing passage through guilt, loyalty, and devastating memories, Jenibel navigates an obstacle course of personal torment that pushes her psyche to the breaking point. What begins as a journey of forgiveness, devolves into a fatal nightmare and a struggle to maintain not just her sanity, but her life.

Jenibel Heath finally faces what she's been avoiding her entire adult life: She's going home.

As a child, following the suicide of her emotionally fragile mother, Jenibel was sent away from her Northern Ontario island home, to be raised and schooled by her aunt in England. Through puberty and adulthood, Jenibel's bitter hatred of her father, Marvin, results in a vow to never return to her unhappy family roots. However, summoned by Marvin's dying wish, she journeys homeward with the hope of achieving forgiveness and acceptance. Immediately upon arriving, undercurrents of menace are evident. Jenibel is haunted by the memory of her mother leaping to her death from the top of the water tower. Her brother, Neil, whose narrow experience has never ventured beyond their island, is notably hostile to her arrival. His behavior betrays a deeply-rooted anger, barely contained. Her younger sister, Linda, born with down-syndrome, reminds Jenibel that she has been gone a very long time, effectively abandoning the entire family.

Marvin, Jenibel's terminally ill father, is hardly frail in his drunken, bitter rants. Indeed, it isn't long before Jenibel regrets making the journey. She is even thwarted in her hope of expressing a measure of forgiveness towards spiteful Marvin.

In a surprising turn of events, Marvin forces a troubling moral dilemma upon Jenibel. While committing a dramatic act of gruesome suicide, he exacts a verbal promise from Jenibel that she will sell the family hunting/fishing business, and the land itself, to finally set the family "free."

Saddled with the burden of this dying wish, Jenibel learns that Marvin has left the family property, assets, and debts, to be shared between herself and her angry brother, Neil. The one catch: Jenibel is bequeathed a 51% share, giving her controlling interest. This empowers her to fulfill her promise to sell the operation against the wishes of her brother, their employees, and even their kindly neighbor and friend, Dr. Bert Morrison. It's like her father has played a cruel joke on her. In his last dying breath, he has made her responsible for uprooting their entire family history, their livelihood, community, and the protective isolation that has fostered family dysfunction for generations.

Jenibel begins to have strange visions, or waking dreams – nightmarish and terrifying – involving her dead parents, deep-felt guilt, and even lucid fantasies that the island itself wants to swallow her whole. As hostilities build and her hallucinations become more frequent, Jenibel suspects that the others are slowly poisoning her. With everyone around her angrily attempting to prevent her from selling the family business, she becomes desperate to escape.

Her fears prove to be more than just paranoia. In a climactic denouement, Jenibel is thwarted in her attempts to flee and is literally held captive until she submits to the will of the group. In a final, startling twist, Jenibel's growing madness proves to be more effective in setting her family “free” than her father might have imagined. If “freedom” requires personal transformation, Jenibel delivers on her father's wishes in a macabre, unexpected act of vengeance.

Blood Honey was directed by Jeff Kopas. Kopas played an important role as a director, and was reviewed as having a decent eye for imbuing scenes with subtle menace.[1] The production began in September 2015 and continued until November 1, 2015. Post-Production was done in Toronto during the winter and spring of 2016.

The film was shot on two remote islands in Georgian Bay, near the small town of Britt in the Parry Sound area of Ontario Canada in the fall of 2015.[2]

• Official website
• Blood Honey Movie official Trailer
• Blood Honey on IMDb
• Blood Honey at AllMovie
• Blood Honey at Rotten Tomatoes