Personal issues make a young man decide to travel from his home in the USA to Italy to escape from his problems. When there he encounters an enigmatic beauty called Louise who has a very strange primordial secret.
What you cannot accuse Spring of is not trying to do something a bit different. This is a film which is definitely fairly original in approach. It sort of defies any clear genre definition and is instead an odd hybrid of horror and romance. Sort of like Before Sunrise (1995) with a side helping of body horror, if you can imagine such a thing. It's that age old story of boy meets girl, girl turns out to be a two thousand year old serpent-like being. Don't you just hate when that happens? Joking aside, the premise is certainly something different and it does stand apart from typical horror or romantic movies of late. That doesn't mean that it is an entirely successful film though, I didn't think the overall whole was up to the task of the admittedly original concepts contained within it. I reckon the two leads were partially responsible for this as there didn't seem to be a massive amount of genuine chemistry between them. Lou Taylor Pucci is a little on the whiny side and does tend to gravitate to playing quite annoying characters such as he also did in the Evil Dead remake. It does mean that he is not entirely easy getting fully on board with. Nadia Hilker was definitely better and quite alluring as the pivotal character Louise but, essentially, the chemistry was missing for me. Much better was the Italian scenery which was gorgeous, it reminded me of how few decent contemporary Italian horror movies we get nowadays compared to the golden years of the 60's to the 80's. So it was nice to see an interesting horror narrative play out against the peerless architecture and sun-kissed beauty of this country. The horror is fairly rationed here, with the relationship material very much taking centre stage but there is definitely some impressive moments. Most notably in the big reveal sequence where we see Louise writhing around in her apartment in her primordial form. I thought that the special effects were very good here and created some indelible imagery. In the final analysis, I would put this one down as genuinely worth the time, even if it does fall short on what it could have been. Certainly a film for those who want to see different angles from the horror genre though.
What you cannot accuse Spring of is not trying to do something a bit different. This is a film which is definitely fairly original in approach. It sort of defies any clear genre definition and is instead an odd hybrid of horror and romance. Sort of like Before Sunrise (1995) with a side helping of body horror, if you can imagine such a thing. It's that age old story of boy meets girl, girl turns out to be a two thousand year old serpent-like being. Don't you just hate when that happens? Joking aside, the premise is certainly something different and it does stand apart from typical horror or romantic movies of late. That doesn't mean that it is an entirely successful film though, I didn't think the overall whole was up to the task of the admittedly original concepts contained within it. I reckon the two leads were partially responsible for this as there didn't seem to be a massive amount of genuine chemistry between them. Lou Taylor Pucci is a little on the whiny side and does tend to gravitate to playing quite annoying characters such as he also did in the Evil Dead remake. It does mean that he is not entirely easy getting fully on board with. Nadia Hilker was definitely better and quite alluring as the pivotal character Louise but, essentially, the chemistry was missing for me. Much better was the Italian scenery which was gorgeous, it reminded me of how few decent contemporary Italian horror movies we get nowadays compared to the golden years of the 60's to the 80's. So it was nice to see an interesting horror narrative play out against the peerless architecture and sun-kissed beauty of this country. The horror is fairly rationed here, with the relationship material very much taking centre stage but there is definitely some impressive moments. Most notably in the big reveal sequence where we see Louise writhing around in her apartment in her primordial form. I thought that the special effects were very good here and created some indelible imagery. In the final analysis, I would put this one down as genuinely worth the time, even if it does fall short on what it could have been. Certainly a film for those who want to see different angles from the horror genre though.