What I’ve Been Watching: Spring

This second film from Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead, after their brilliant meta-horror debut Resolution, is very much along the lines of what I want from horror/fantastic literature. It has its moments of horror and dread, its moments of beauty and lyricism and naturalism, and it uses its fantastic elements to illuminate its human, emotional story rather than as ends in themselves.

In it, an American flees trouble with the police and dead parents to Italy, where he doesn’t know what to expect but is happy for any change of scenery or circumstance. There, he meets a beautiful, mysterious Italian woman (of course) and enters into a relationship with her. Given the type of movie this is, it should come as no surprise that there’s more to her than she lets on and that the secret she’s harboring will come to cause problems for the couple soon enough.

I won’t give away more than that—and the trailers for the film probably say more than I have, so watch them at your peril if you care about spoilers. I suspect there’s a pretty solid feminist critique of this film to be made—after all, how many more movies do we need about mysterious, possibly supernatural, often foreign, women who are pursued and loved by everyman white American men in their 20s? As much as framing the film in those terms may give you pause, try to suspend that judgement and see Spring first. It’s a beautiful, emotional film.