Jenn wakes up on the beach after surviving a shipwreck. The only other survivor has fatal injuries and passes before she can save him. She is alone on a deserted island and the only signs of life she can find are evidence of her deadly circumstances—a cooler covered in mold, a bag with expired medicine, and rotted camping equipment. The island is not hospitable, but Jenn refuses to give up. Then night falls and everything changes.

Sweetheart throws you right in the action. Not every horror story needs this immediate payoff, but it sure helps set the stakes when you’re pretty much dealing with a one person cast. Jenn’s conflict is immediately apparent and we become invested in her survival. The action of the opening—waking up, discovery her gravely injured companion, frantically trying to find a way to save him, and failing—builds up enough tension to justify slowing down the pace to establish the rules of the island.

The signs that something is wrong are there from the start. Nothing on this island wants to yield to human influence. A coconut will shatter just enough to let a small trickle of water come out. Fish that beached themselves during a storm won’t release the flesh from their skin and bones. The island is covered in strange scratch marks with no signs of wildlife large enough to make them.

All of this is a testament to writer/director J.D. Dillard, writer Alex Hyner, and writer Alex Theurer’s screenplay. There are moments for dialogue. Jenn talks to her companion when she tries to save him and cries out when startled. The rest of the story is all visual storytelling. The secrets of the island, the sequence of events, and how Jenn interacts with her strange new world have to be planned out by a strong screenplay to justify this level of impact. The story gets to expand in a natural way about halfway through, breathing new life into the scenario and showing the true power of the island.

Kiersey Clemons (Dope) is strong as Jenn. She has a very expressive face and great physicality. You know what Jenn is thinking and feeling in every scene because Clemons leaves no doubt about the intentions of her performance. There are levels to her performance, a sense of nuance that is rarely given time to breathe in horror. It’s a performance that just feels real. That’s a make or break element in survival horror.

Your invested in whatever comes next by the time Jenn discovers strange holes in and around the island. This is survival horror through the lens of weird fiction and it works. Jenn’s early struggles can be written away as inexperience. Cleaning fish and clams usually requires a knife. Most people can’t easily swim too far underwater because they’re not conditioned to the higher pressure. Nocturnal animals are typically pretty strong at hiding themselves during the day. But the thing she in the shadows of the night? That has no logical explanation and its terrifying.

Sweetheart is currently streaming on Netflix.

***

Sketching Details is now on Patreon. Subscribe for as little as $1/month for access to exclusive articles, videos, and content.