Spring (2014) – Hooptober Challenge #8
Requirements:
- 5 Films from De Palma, Wes Craven, Ken Russell, Hitchcock and/or Moorhead & Benson (1/5)
Let me give you some insight into my thoughts as a horror writer. I absolutely love the roster of traditional horror monsters/beasties that get used in stories: ghosts, zombies, mummies, vampires, werewolves, and so forth. As a matter of fact, one of my goals is to publish a story or comic or do a movie for each of them to add to the lore/subgenre. But I also have a major hankering to add a new creature to the list.
There’s nothing that would cement a horror writer more than popularizing a new monster in horror and having other creators take it and run. A unique creation would be incredible, or dredging up some cryptid or folklore nightmare and bringing it into the (dark) light– either is fine. I imagine I’m not the only horror writer who thinks the same way.
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So, with that in mind, I always give some extra brownie points to movies or stories that attempt to use something new. It doesn’t always work, but I admire the effort. There is a treasure trove of denizens of the dark out there, and it’s only a matter of time before another one is added to the inner circle.
Horror is fun as a writer because you can get away with whatever mundane thing or moment you want to cook up. Or you can do one of the most batshit things you can think of up to or into the scare or gore. The key is that it is all in service to that moment of payoff. That moment of release is when the reader or watcher finally gets what they were coming for. Because a scare or chills or bloody bits is all that unifies it as a genre. It’s that note everyone is there to hear… and it doesn’t matter if it’s sustained or sharp and sudden and gone before you realize it was even there.
It is a license. To get away with wherever you want to play and whatever toys you bring to the playground. But to make it good — to make it good horror — you better make that moment, mundane or batshit, the best you can make it. And that’s where a lot of horror gets tangled up: in the moments between the notes. And that is where Spring (2014) really excels. Even if it weren’t a horror movie, and even if it didn’t have elements of the supernatural, it would have succeeded as a good movie. It is a movie about someone lost and finding himself. It is a love story. It is an odyssey.
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The most important building block of a good story is good character development. The characters in this film are all believable, even if they’re only in a scene or two. Lou Taylor Pucci’s Evan is a believable and likable lead. The beginning of the film shows him in the middle of the horror of the mundane – caretaker to a terminal mother, the victim of circumstance when he’s embroiled in a bout of drunken machismo by a dudebro, losing a job that’s only just barely worth holding onto, and the aftermath of a moment of weakness.
Evan uses his troubles as a springboard to get lost in a foreign land where nobody knows what he’s left behind. Even the depiction of an Italian hostel environment is strikingly accurate.
The horror itself is unsettling but never reaches the heights that I would’ve liked to have seen. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead do keep you guessing for quite a while. The reveal, when it happens, is solid. And they get brownie points for not going down the well-worn paths.
The imagery of the film is breathtaking. They make the best use of overhead shots that I’ve seen in horror, each time both adding to the eeriness and surreality of its setting. Overall, the film shows clear promise from the directing duo (who have since been recruited into the MCU television ecosphere).
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Nadia Hilker, as Louise, is a revelation. Not only is she stunning, but she is a phenomenal actor. And while Lou Taylor Pucci is serviceable, the film does lose a little with the disparity in performance between the two leads. I also would have preferred the monster of the film to be a bit more clearly defined as something traditional… and I do think that’s slightly to the detriment of the overall picture.
That all said, the film is gorgeous, entertaining, unique, and an excellent early entry into the Moorhead and Benson film catalog.
 from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.){kind=link}