Director: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorehead
Writer: Justin Benson
Starring: Lou Taylor Pucci(Evil Dead), Nadia Hilker, Jeremy Gardner(The Battery)
"Pick your poison."
I *think* I read about this over on thefilmstage.com. I do remember watching a little bit of the trailer then cutting it off after I got the gist of what it was about to avoid seeing anything that would lead to ruining the entire story. As I said before in my The Dead Lands review, when I hear/read a film is up my alley, I like going in knowing as little possible. I went into Spring thinking it was a horror. It turns out to be more than that.
It starts out with our lead, Evan(Pucci), sitting beside his cancer stricken mother as she lay dying in bed. Not unlike many horrors. You know the ones... the lead has either just dealt with a tragedy or is still reeling from a traumatic experience in their past. For a minute it had me worried, but when the cops show up at Evan's house because he almost beats a guy to death in a bar forcing him to flee for Italy, the film takes a really, really good turn. He gets to Italy, there's a quick montage of him doing tourist-y stuff. And then he meets up with two Brits who seem like roughnecks at first, but are nice enough and invite him to go to the country with them and so they go to this beautiful, and I mean BEAUTIFUL town, Conversano I think it is, I only know from looking up the filming locations on IMDb, I watched this movie twice and didn't hear them say.
Evan and these Brits stay there for a few days, during the stay Evan meets a beautiful young woman named Louise(Hilker) at the bar, a local, who tries to seduce Evan, but turns around and cuts out when he asks her out on a date to try to get to know her. A few days go by and the Brits decide to leave, Evan stays behind and gets a job. He runs into Louise again and finally she goes out with him and they hit it off. There's a quote on the poster for the film that says "A HYBRID OF RICHARD LINKLATER AND H.P. LOVECRAFT." I've only read two Lovecraft books and I don't know, I could probably stand to read more to get a full grasp on the nature of his works, but from what I did read, he doesn't have much of an influence here outside of maybe some of the monsters? However, the former comparison to Linklater mostly rings true. Has all the elements intrinsic of his work(The Before trilogy mainly.) The fluid, subtle camerawork, the walk-and-talk motif & the naturalistic dialogue. Although, nothing particularly thought-provoking is said(mostly in Evan's case), the genuine chemistry between the two characters is definitely there.
Pucci portrays a tortured, but surprisingly optimistic character in Evan. The guy has the absolute worst luck in the world, but still plays it down, what a trooper. Despite all of that I really didn't care for him. Thought he was bit pushy & badgering to be honest. I don't really know what Louise saw in him, but what do women ever see in us? And I could be surely reaching, but I think that's one of, if not the biggest, the themes of the film along with exploring some of the dangers women face in society, it also shows how big of deal it really is when what women start a family with a guy, just on a grander scale. And that's not to say Louise was "perfect" in comparison to Evan, because she could be impatient and dismissive at times, not to mention a whole lot of other things, but to say that women in general are amazing creatures(see what I did there? No? Just watch the film) that sometimes give up things to settle down and that's nothing to be taken lightly.
Hilker plays a wise, free-spirit type well, but didn't care for her character much either. But together, Evan & Louise are great. Their banter, the flirting, moments of vulnerability they share, etc. Like I said, genuine chemistry between the two. The horror element is there with some great VFX(CGI & practial), but I haven't said much about it because I don't want to ruin anything. Plus, even though I am a huge genre fan, I say it's only the second most interesting part of the story AFTER the romance. You can trust it's that good because films that focus heavily on romance don't usually impress me. All in all, it's good film. An intriguing genre splicer equipped with fangs, tentacles & claws, but most important of all: a heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment