GamesRadar+ Verdict

Strong performances, intriguing gender politics, a warm narrative, dollops of wicked humour and some show-stopping transformations that are all ick and eek.

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A monster mash-up...

Chances are you won’t have seen Resolution, the 2012 debut of writer/directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. A critical hit on the horror festival circuit that went straight to DVD in the UK, it was likened to Cabin In The Woods, only smaller, cheaper and even smarter.

Knocked out by the death of his mother, twentysomething American Evan (Thumbsucker’s Lou Taylor Pucci) takes an impulsive vacation to Italy, where he meets beautiful genetics student Louise (Nadia Hilker). They stroll, they flirt, they tumble into bed... they might even fall in love, if Louise wasn’t forever disappearing like Cinderella at the ball. If Cinderella slipped away to inject herself with a freaky serum, that is.

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Feeding the audience answers before Evan, it’s a measure of just how ‘out there’ Spring is that we know our hero is cleaving too close to normality when he enquires if Louise is some sort of “vampire, werewolf, zombie, witch or alien?” He’d be better off asking himself what it would look like if a young David Cronenberg adapted a Lovecraft tale after watching Andrzej Zulawski’s cult 1981 horror Possession.

To say more would be to ruin the surprise but, as with Resolution, the fun is in watching the directors display an affectionate awareness of genre tropes while turning them inside out. It’s rare indeed to find a modern horror film more interested in characters than plot or body count, and the naturalistic storytelling pays dividends. No matter how gooey the (largely practical) effects in the final act, this remains a human drama with emotional kick.

Jamie Graham is a freelance writer and former Editor-at-Large of Total Film magazine. You'll likely find them around these parts reviewing the biggest films on the planet and speaking to some of the biggest stars in the business – that's just what Jamie does. Jamie has also written for outlets like SFX and the Sunday Times Culture, and appeared on podcasts exploring the wondrous worlds of occult and horror.