What the movie's really about [SPOILERS]
Ever since catching this the other night, there's been one thought that I've predominantly been mulling over endlessly, namely that the move itself works as an allegory of pregnancies amongst married - especially newlywed - couples. Yeah, the movie focuses around themes of inherent fears and suspicions like how well can you ever truly know someone, how do you know if 'the one' is actually the right one etc., but I'd venture that these ultimately take a backseat. Unconvinced? Well, hear me out.
Prior to the late-night woods freak-out, the first sign of discord - or indeed anything that's not sickeningly lovey-dovey-intolerably-cute couple - between Bea and Paul is when they're making breakfast and he refers to her 'womb', which is even acknowledged as a strange choice of words by the characters.
After things take a turn for the weird, the first big change in their relationship is that she keeps spurning his advances with all too familiar - almost clichéed - responses i.e. "I've got a headache", "I'm tired" - a reflection of a decreased physical intimacy that's supposed to be attached to expecting couples.
Next, Bea's distant - preoccupied, even - and they're relationship starts to deteriorate further; what she used to find funny, she no longer does etc. all of which can be causally extrapolated from the woods incident (I'll get to that in a sec). Again, supposedly mirroring how couples can lose touch and fall out with one another with a child on the way.
When it's finally revealed that there's something clearly physically wrong with Bea, it's telling that the tentacle-alien-whatever-that-is is - as earlier foreshadowed - festering in the womb. Even more fitting is how it resembles a garish, deformed umbilical cord.
Sure, you can argue that some of the above may be a bit tenuous, there's surely much too much for it to purely be a coincidence. Initially I wasn't too stoked about the film as a whole, but with the aforementioned allegorical aspect in mind, Honeymoon actually became a fiendishly clever subversion of the body-horror genre; after all, what can be more terrifying than something completely alien to the world growing inside of you for nine months?
Thoughts?