Spring (2014) - Justin Benson & Aaron Scott Moorhead

Following the death of his parents, Evan's life is on a downward spiral, drowing his sorrow in alcohol and pissing away his Berkeley education by working as a barback at a dingy local bar.  In immediate need to escape his life, Evan spontaneously leaves the United States and heads to Italy in search of some type of meaning.  Finding work in a small seaside town in Italy, Evan meets Louise, a beautiful woman, who carries an unfathomable dark secret.  Justin Benson & Aaron Scott Moorhead's Spring is a beautifully written love story that is wrongfully classified as a horror film due to its large creature feature elements.  At its heart, Spring is Evan's journey into rediscovering himself and in Louise he fiinds someone who revitalizes his reason to live.  Louise is an ancient creature that is best not described, and while the film does an excellent job at creating a unique and compelling monster, the screeplay really struggles to capture the emotions of Louise as a character, particularly at the very important flinal scenes.  That being said, both actors do an excellent job in this film, making it very easy to believe in their romance. Directed in a way that perfectly flows between the horror and romantic aspects of the movie, Spring is really another excellent calling card for Benson and Moorhead.  I particularly loved their use of animal imagery throughout the film, using it to foreshadow the potential dread on the horizon.  Evan and Louise's relationship feels geniune in Spring, with each of them having secrets and having to overcome them and trust each other.  Full of subtext, Spring is a constantly evolving narrative that blends horror, drama, and romance creating one of the better characterizations in Evan that the 'genre film' has to offer.

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