Consumed, Courtney Halverson, Devon Sawa, horror, Mark Famiglietti, Mitchell Altieri, movies, reviews
August 20, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Mitchell Altieri
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror film “Consumed” features an all-white group of people who experience terror in a remote wooded area.
Culture Clash: During a camping trip in this remote wooded area, a married couple and a mysterious stranger become the targets of an evil spirit that possesses people who get lost in the woods.
Culture Audience: “Consumed” will appeal mainly to people who will watch any horror movie, not matter how terrible it is.
“Consumed” is not only the title of this inept and tedious horror movie, but it also describes how “Consumed” soullessly eats up viewers’ time and patience when watching this dreck. It’s nothing but repetitive scenes of poorly staged terror in a wooded area. This isn’t even the type of feature-length movie that would have been better as a short film because the basic plot of “Consumed” is just a mishmash of clichés and superficial characters with very little substance.
Directed by Mitchell Altieri and written by David Calbert, “Consumed” takes place in an unnamed U.S. city. (“Consumed” was actually filmed in New Jersey.) Married couple Beth McCormick (played by Courtney Halverson) and her husband Jay (played by Mark Famiglietti) are on a camping trip in a remote wooded area. The only thing you will learn about this couple during the entire movie is that Beth is recovering from cancer, and this trip is supposed to be the couple’s celebration that Beth’s cancer is in remission.
The opening scene of “Consumed” shows a frightened Beth running through a wooded area, with the cinematography for the scene drenched in red light, so you know that it’s supposed to be some type of nightmare. As she runs through the woods, she sees a leaf-covered body on a slab in the middle of the area where she’s at. All of a sudden, a hand reaches out and grabs Beth, who is bald in this red-light scene. The movie then abruptly cuts to the next scene, which shows Beth and Jay hiking in the woods.
During their hiking and camping, Beth and Jay hear strange and alarming noises, such as gunshots and a screeching sound that sounds like a giant bird. Most people would leave or at try to find out if they’re in immediate danger. Because this is a stupid horror movie, Beth and Jay don’t do that and therefor become sitting ducks for the terror that’s about to hit them.
After a hike, Jay and Beth come back to their camp and find the entire campsite trashed and covered in mysterious slime. Jay and Beth still don’t do anything. It isn’t until they hear these screeching sounds again and see black smoke coming out from behind a tree that they get scared and run.
It should come as no surprise that someone falls and gets injured. It’s Jay, who then gets even more bad luck when his left leg gets caught in a bear trap. And because this is a mindless horror movie, these people have gone camping in a remote area and didn’t think of a way to contact help in case of an emergency. There are no cell phones at all in this dreadful movie.
Somehow, Beth and an injured Jay find an underground bunker that has a trap door as an entrance. Inside the bunker, they see a mysterious and disheveled stranger dressed in skinned animal fur, as if he’s the poster child for Survivalists R Us. The stranger says his name is Quinn (played by Devon Sawa), who babbles about Wendigo, an evil spirit who possesses people who are lost in the woods.
Jay goes in and out of consciousness and can’t really move without assistance because of his injured leg. Somehow, Quinn coerces Beth to try to hunt down the menacing creature that seems to be after them. Quinn snarls to Beth: “I can’t let you leave the bunker until I kill that thing.” The rest of “Consumed” is about this hunt.
“Consumed” plods along with weak jump scares, idiotic dialogue, unimpressive acting, and mediocre visual effects—all of it extremely boring and incoherent. People watching this movie will be thinking the entire time, “Why should we care about these characters? There’s no real information about them.”
Toward the end of “Consumed,” it’s revealed that Quinn has a personal connection to what’s going on, but this revelation is too little, too late. The movie throws in more red-light scenes of bald Beth running around in a terrified manner. Why? Don’t expect an explanation for that either, except it seems to be the movie’s tacky way of showing that Beth has a fear of her cancer coming back. “Consumed” is just a cesspool of uninspired and lackluster scenes that add up to a complete waste of time.
Brainstorm Media released “Consumed” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 16, 2024.