As I type this, DARK NATURE is the No. 3 streaming horror film on Amazon Prime, so I thought, “What the hell… I’ll just watch it.” The story seemed somewhat interesting as it follows Joy (Hannah Emily Anderson), a woman trying to recover from an abusive relationship. She joins her friend Carmen (Madison Walsh), whose therapy group is heading out on a retreat into the Canadian Rockies. Led by Dr. Dunnley (Kyra Harper), the goal of the group is to confront their personal traumas and start healing. Unfortunately, once they get out into the mountains, things really begin to go wrong. Joy experiences visions of her abusive ex, while the other members of the group have their own disturbing issues to deal with. And what’s the deal with this terrifying vision they all seem to be having of a dangerous beast in the woods?!

I’ll give this movie credit for trying to do something a little different. Writer and director Berkley Brady uses horror to explore the darkness inside the normal lives of its characters in a literal outdoor group therapy camping session. It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think the movie does enough with it. I wanted the film to explore the characters more deeply and maybe put them in a position to really work together no matter what dangers they face. But when the actual deadly creature shows up, I was disappointed because the story abandoned that idea of a group helping each other. Rather, most of them just became lunch.

On the positive side, the movie is set in beautiful mountainous locations where the remote wilderness reinforces the feeling that our characters have little hope of escaping. And I thought Hannah Emily Anderson did a good job of showing Joy’s fear and her doubts, and then getting tough when she has to. I thought her most effective scenes were spent trying to reconcile with her best friend or fighting the abusive man in her life, not the murderous mountain creature. Those scenes actually felt real and tugged at my emotions. The story presented interesting possibilities, but I don’t think the execution delivers.

At the end of the day, I do have some appreciation for what DARK NATURE is attempting to do, even if I was somewhat underwhelmed with the actual movie. It’s never a good sign when an 85-minute movie feels a lot longer. But I do think that there could be an interesting movie buried inside this story, one that uses a horror movie monster and group therapy to explore the very real monstrous situations that regular people find themselves in. I just don’t think this is it.