Roxanne Benjamin’s Body at Brighton Rock gets off to an incredibly strong start, ominously foreshadowing a perilous journey for an inexperienced trail guide who’s about to go through a nightmarish experience.
Karina Fontes stars as Wendy, the aforementioned guide who goes against her boss’s orders and the advice of her co-workers and swaps shifts roles with her friend, taking on a harder path to patrol for the day: a decision that may cost her her life.
After dancing around the trails and posting up signs, Wendy realizes she’s not exactly where she thought she was, and because she’s lost her map, she cannot pinpoint her location. To make matters worse, she stumbles onto a dead body and finds out she must spend the night there guarding it until the park rangers arrive.
This premise is decidedly thin but lends itself to a series of interesting circumstances. However Wendy’s near-constant incompetence, coupled with her fragile psyche being shattered early on, dismantles Body At Brighton Rock ever so slowly as it progresses.
It’s a film of convenience, with false jump scares lazily injected through the use of loud music. Wendy’s delusions serve as the main source of horror, though much of it comes off as inconsequential and unnecessary, given the situation alone should be enough to deliver an entertaining isolation thriller.
It’s only a short amount of time before Wendy finds the body, yet she’s told it will take hours for the proper authorities to get to her and that she’ll have to wait until the next morning for help to arrive. Her phone dies. The batteries in the walkie talkie die. Then, after she finds replacements, she drops it and breaks it.
Benjamin incorporates a distinct ’80s vibe into the film, from the music selection (which is great), to the opening titles (which are also great), but it’s set today, adding additional elements that must be explained away, such as cell phones and GPS.
It does pick up steam in its latter moments, though, when Wendy must contend with the harsh environment and the local inhabitants of the wilderness. Like the rest of the movie, this set-piece is well shot and adequately ramps up the tension as Wendy’s life is put in jeopardy. But by this point it’s too little…too late.
Body at Brighton Rock has all the makings of an interesting character study of a timid young woman grappling with the trauma of being alone and lost in the wilderness with a dead body in her presence, but with unearned scares and unnecessary set-pieces that simply feel like filler, it ultimately falters in its execution.
