Fantastic Fest 2014: THE HIVE – The Review

First time feature director David Yarovesky blends equal parts contagion film, psychological drama, and teen romance into a horror film with a lot on its mind. Maybe too much on its mind for some people, but all of the elements hit the right notes for me. THE HIVE isn’t breaking any new ground with its ideas, but it is how the ideas are delivered that makes this worth a watch for fans of infection films. Yarovesky’s art direction and visual sense is particularly strong. His history in music video directing is fairly apparent but doesn’t hinder his aspirations to deliver an emotional and meaningful character driven story. Yes… black goo and grisly gore leave the screen caked in a thick, viscous layer, but the setup leading up to the gory bits has all the heart and character that you’d expect from a coming-of-age comedy.

The film opens with a young man (Gabriel Basso) waking up in a boarded-up cabin. He’s all alone and is confused by how he got there. Words and directions are scribbled in chalk all over the walls. All that is immediately apparent is that he is definitely not physically well as neon blood runs through his veins and a black liquid oozes out of open sores. What follows is a series of flashbacks leading up to how he got in the cabin, showing his days as a summer camp counselor and a girl he began to fall in love with… before he entered the personal hell he is in now.

Yarovesky keeps you guessing right from the beginning to where the story might go. Once you get a little deeper into THE HIVE, you do start to piece together the story quicker than the bewildered lead. I mainly enjoyed the back and forth between the past memories of our protagonist’s time at summer camp and his present day struggle to discover who he is. This is mainly due to Gabriel Russo in the lead. His character evolves naturally on-screen and the chemistry between his raunchy buddy Clark (Jacob Zachar) and love interest Katie (Kathryn Prescott) works to build a humane foundation to unleash the impending horror.

The second half brings some of the mystery that was previously hinted at into the light. We see the origin and consequences of a deadly virus. It’s a concept we’ve seen before, but at least is injected with some energy through  the film’s intense camera-work and choppy edited style. There are elements that eventually come into play that aren’t as successful, such as when the virus-inflicted victims begin speaking in demonic voices. It’s hard to swallow this without immediately thinking of EVIL DEAD. But since Yarovesky took the time to establish the characters, when the threat of the virus rears its nasty, black goo spewing head, you feel the stakes have been properly raised and you fear for the inevitable conclusion.

Considering this is a debut feature, you have to give a little bit of a pass to director David Yarovesky for biting off a little more than he can chew. At times you feel he had a hard time balancing the different elements of the story. For instance, the flashbacks of the science experiment gone wrong aren’t explained enough to really warrant their inclusion in the story as much as they are. Mixing pseudo-science such as the transferring of brain signals and cerebral medical experiments into the horror arena can sometimes make for a messy experiment. The way Yarovesky mixes everything so confidently though is worth applauding. THE HIVE is a bold and visually striking feature that signals the arrival of a new voice in horror. It’s a strong first feature that succeeds at doing things right, even if we’ve seen many of these things before.

Overall rating: 3.5 out of 5