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Girl-cult movie shot on Cortes Island features in Slamdance Film Festival

Carihi Secondary grad Avalon Fast trying to make name in horror circles
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Honeycomb is director Avalon Fast’s first feature length film. Submitted photo

Avalon Fast didn’t set out to make a feature length film, but doing so allowed her to spend a lot more time with her pals.

She came up with the idea for Honeycomb, which is now playing as part of the Slamdance Film Festival, while summering on Cortes Island right after high school wrapped up for her in 2018.

The movie was filmed the following summer in the fields and beaches where it was dreamed up, and stars Fast’s high school buddies.

It’s intended as a horror, and has all the stabby makings of one, but it also excellently captures the anxieties of post-high school life, summer boredom in isolated communities, and the search for meaning during the transition from teenage years to adulthood.

“It’s an interesting time being 19-20 years old,” Fast said, “It’s tough figuring out where to go from there.”

The film shows a group of girls who decide to take up residence in an isolated cabin one summer to get away from it all.

What starts off as an innocent endeavour takes on the look of a cult before long.

“I think that young women are really scary,” Fast volunteers, “so I think they fit into horror well.

“Girls in groups almost have a cult like mentality.” she adds. “It’s an exclusive cliquey thing, especially when they’re younger.”

It also showcases the gap between the guys and girls at that age well.

“I think my biggest frustration (growing up in Sayward) was the gender divide there,” Fast said.

“There was a lot of time where myself and my girlfriends felt overshadowed in social situations by males, whether it was parties or hangouts.”

While it was a bit of a letdown hearing the Slamdance festival was going to be held virtually this year, Fast said it has still been exciting being a part of it.

She got the cast and crew together to watch screenings of some of the films, and has had a chance to do a lot of networking.

“It’s been way better than I would have expected,” she said. “I’m proud to be in the line-up with all these other good film makers and have been able to make many connections.

“To be involved with a little film family has been really special.”

Fast is assembling the new connections to work on a screenplay she just completed.

“It’s about a young woman who experiences tragedy early on in life, who decides to work as an instructor at a summer camp away from her home town,” she said.

Fans of Fast can rest assured evil will be lurking around the corner in the new movie too.



ronan.odoherty@campbellrivermirror.com

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