Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada

SPRING Toronto Press Tour May 14 & 15

DVD Release June 2 Page Break Report

July 21, 2015

 

         

Tuesday, May 12   Outlet: The Toronto Star Format: Print, Online Interviewer: Linda Barnard  

Thursday, May 14   Outlet: Your World This Week Format: TV Interviewer: Kim Wozniak  

  Outlet: Someone Else’s Movies Format: Online Interviewer: Norm Wilner  

Friday, May 15   Outlet: Global Morning Show Format: TV Interviewer: Liza Fromer, Daryn Jones

  Outlet: InnerSpace Format: TV Interviewer: Morgan Hoffman

  Outlet: Biff Bam Pop Format: Online Interviewer: Ron McKenzie

  Outlet: Everything is Scary Format: Online Interviewer: Leslie Hatton

Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson Interview Schedule  

Friday, May 15 continued…  

Outlet: Monsters and Critics Format: Online Interviewer: Anne Brodie

  Outlet: Cinemachina Format: Online Interviewer: Josh Lewis

  Outlet: We Are Addicted Format: Online Interviewer: Kirk Haviland

  Outlet: In The Seats Format: Online Interviewer: Heidy Marisol

  Outlet: Ward and Al Format: Sirius XM Satellite Radio Interviewer: Ward Anderson, Kate Drummond

  Outlet: Todd Shapiro Show Format: Sirius XM Satellite Radio Interviewer: Todd Shapiro

  Outlet: Excentris Format: Online Interviewer: Jeremy Hervieux

         

                                                                                           

                                                                                           

Interviews  

                 

                                                           Please find this interview online: http://globalnews.ca/video/2000562/spring-monster-movie-combines-romance-with-horror  

                                                                                    Please find this interview online: http://www.space.ca/InnerSpace?vid=620428

Please find this interview online: https://vimeo.com/130093872

                     

                        Please find this interview online: https://www.dropbox.com/s/28z7cj72oa8fom4/Ward%26Al%20-%20SPRING.mp3?dl=0

CHANNEL 167CHANNEL 167

                                      Please find this interview online: http://toddshapiro.corefusion.net/289-may-15-2015.mp3  

CHANNEL 168CHANNEL 168

                                                                                Please find this interview online: http://someoneelsesmovie.com/justin-benson-and-aaron-moorhead-on-almost-famous

                                                        By: Linda Barnard Staff Reporter, Published on Thu May 14 2015 American directors Justin Benson, 31, and Aaron Moorhead, 28, bring their horror-romance Spring to Toronto Friday, a fresh and unusual drama that defies pigeonholing. It’s the second feature for the pair, tapped by Variety as among the “10 directors to watch” for 2015. Shot primarily in Italy, Spring had its world premiere at TIFF 2014. The two made their first feature, the ultra low-budget thriller Resolution, in 2012, “paid for out of our chequing accounts . . . by busing tables,” laughs Benson over the phone from Los Angeles.

Spring stars Lou Taylor Pucci as a rootless American who falls for a mysterious and seductive woman (Nadia Hilker) in a coastal Italian village. She has a disturbing secret tied to local mythology. Up next for the directors is an as-yet untitled movie about Victorian occultist Aleister Crowley. The Star asked them to share five lessons they learned while making Spring. 1. Don’t get stuck on traditional storytelling: “Stay interesting. Stay funny. Stay heartbreaking. Don’t compromise on that to impose conventional story structure,” says Benson. 2. Location can make a movie look bigger: “It expands the scope of the film,” says Moorehead of shooting in Italy, a decision made easier with tax credits. “It made it feel like a much bigger film than it is.” And hire a local producer who speaks the language.    3. Writing, directing, producing, editing and shooting lets you give 100 per cent: “We tried really hard to make sure we can just nail it,” says Benson. “We know exactly how we could push it.” 4. Casting: Hire “the best actors you can” and “go for the person who fits the character” on the page says Benson. Cut for performance when editing. 5. Rehearse for as long as possible: “If magic stuff happens on set, that’s great,” says Moorehead. But being prepared is more important.   Please find this interview online: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2015/05/14/spring-directors-justin-benson-and-aaron-moorhead-share-five-lessons.html

                 

   

        Horror Cinema has been experiencing a rennaisance as of late, with indies such as THE BABADOOK and IT FOLLOWS being prime examples of this “new blood” transfusion. Now, we can add SPRING to the list of genre trailblazers.

The sophomore effort by writer/director duo, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (and the follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2012 debut, RESOLUTION ), SPRING details the whirlwind romance between Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Louise (Nadia Hilker). Evan is an American ex-pat, dealing with grief and a personal emotional tailspin. Louise is a genetics student dealing with … well, secrets of her own. Deep, dark monstrous secrets. With brilliant practical special FX by Masters FX, bolstered by the solid performances and red-hot chemistry between Pucci and Hilker as well as the sumptuous and eerie beauty of Italy, SPRING is a rare beast in every sense of the word. Weaving horror, sci-fi and romance into a cohesive and fascinating whole that’s been described as “Before Sunrise, as re-imagined by Clive Barker.” A good-enough description for a film that defies comparisons. There’s been a lot of hype for SPRING. I’m happy to report that it’s completely warranted.    I had the chance to sit down with Benson and Moorhead in advance of last Friday’s premiere screening, to talk about SPRING’s genesis, the search for their film’s young lovers, mythology and monsters. Q: Tell us a little about the seeds for SPRING? How did the story come together? AARON: We just made our first film, RESOLUTION, and that was just got going out of nowhere, for us. We just made it because we wanted to make a movie. We had no idea it was going to turn into anything, and it got into a decent film festival. It got into Tribeca and it kind of “launched” us. So we could actually go make another movie, maybe. That one was about the deconstruction of a very old friendship and a monster movie – even though it doesn’t really show the monster. Whereas with SPRING, we wanted to keep it in that vein, in some ways, but step forward. So we made a movie where we show the monster, but it’s not a vampire/werewolf/zombie/alien. It’s a new mythology, which is something that seems surprisingly rare. They do exist, like THE BABADOOK and IT FOLLOWS, where they are new

mythologies. But people really aren’t asking for it until they get it. We also wanted to deconstruct a romance or love story. If you take the first six months of a relationship, it’s kind of what happens in SPRING, but condensed into a week, literally and metaphorically. JUSTIN: The mechanism, by which our monster operates, was just an idea that seemed to have emotional resonance, with the way her body operates. And it seemed to be something, like with the vampire myth for example. It’s like “okay, how does a vampire stay alive or remain immortal?” “Oh, it sucks blood.” From a modern perspective, it only makes sense because you’ve been raised with that myth. It ultimately doesn’t make sense that blood gives you eternal life. We know that you can’t make Frankenstein’s Monster by putting a bunch of body parts together and applying electricity. But the way that our monster operates, it makes a certain amount of logical sense. It also simultaneously has just enough pulp to it, without crossing over into pure camp. AARON: What’s cool about it is that it works from one central idea. Because with horror movies, it’s become very hard-to-scare. At least for Justin and me, it’s very hard to be scared, because you have to swallow a bunch of very arbitrary rules. You know, even with vampires, where it’s very much in the public consciousness, but there are a lot of very arbitrary rules. “They sleep in a coffin, they can turn into a bat and they have to drink blood and you can’t see their reflection.” Where are these coming from? So, for ours, there’s one simple rule which is nature-based in many ways and, in some ways, science-based. It all spins off from that one point and it all makes sense from there without being “ok, so what other rules can we apply to make a monster?” Or things like the new “monster rules” will end up servicing where they want the story to go.

Q: When you were writing, were you conscious of maintaining a balance between the supernatural/fantastic elements of the story with the reality-based dramatic aspects? JUSTIN: We never really thought about that, during the script phase or the making of the movie. One thing we are very careful about with the “fantasy” elements is that we get them right. It’s less thinking about exact proportions and more thinking instinctually, that it seemed right to do it in the script and that we were doing it correctly. AARON: I think that thinking about it as a balance dichotomizes the idea, as if to say “oh, there’s a love story AND there’s a horror story” and it’s like, “no, no, these are inextricable from each other.” People will say you can remove the horror elements and you’ll still have a wonderful romance, but no you won’t. You will have a boring romance with two people who, you know, get along really well. The thing is, the whole problem of their love story, which makes it interesting, comes from the sci-fi element. JUSTIN: They actually can’t meet without the monster. It’s why she’s so aggresive with Evan. AARON: That was part of the development of the script, changing the way that they met, to make it where it only works because of that. And it also increases the fact that Evan is in danger, but not making it like a crazy, bloody chase. But he is in danger, and that’s true metaphorically, literally and emotionally, and it was about making sure that comes across visually.

Q: Lou Taylor Pucci and Nadia Hilker have such an amazing rapport on screen, which is so important since so much of the film’s success stands or falls on selling their relationship. How did you know they were your Evan and Louise?

JUSTIN: Lou was our first time casting like grown-ups, when you go through an agency and manager and all that. When you do that, you typically don’t get an audition. But we watched Lou in THUMBSUCKER, and the thing you see in that movie is that he’s just really good at the type of humour that we like. He’s good with naturalistic acting, which we needed, but we also need actors with humour. He does so much with “uncomfortable”, and there was a “fish out of water” aspect to it. So he was perfect for this. AARON: Casting Nadia was going back to our roots of “not casting like grown-ups”. I’m going to make this sound a bit epic, because it’s true. We had been searching for Nadia, basically. We saw a lot of people and we could not have cast any of them, except for Nadia. So we did the grown-up route and we basically got sent “Tara Reid” a thousand times over. And we were “well, this just doesn’t work at all.

Do they have an accent? Are there even any people with accents on the roster? Or that don’t look like they are from California?” So in a fit of desperation, we sent out an e-mail to every European producer and director we ever met and we had done an international tour with RESOLUTION, so it was actually quite a bit. We bascially sent the description of Nadia out and she actually came back on a couple of peoples’ lists. They all said “she hasn’t done anything, but she’s going to be a star.” and the was what everybosy said. So we Skyped with her, and she was great. Pulling the trigger was scary because hadn’t met her and she was a little untested, which really wasn’t that much of a fear for us, but so much of the movie rested on her. Most movies don’t actually rest on the lead. Most movies have so many different roles where they can come in and come out, an it’s not a big deal. As long as they can execute the role, it’s fine. But with Nadia and Lou, it just had to work. What a boring movie it would be if they were just okay. Q: Both SPRING and your previous film, RESOLUTION, have been called “Lovecraftian”, with other names such as Cronenberg and Barker also being bandied about? Were they, or any other creators, an inspiration for you and your films? AARON: I’ll be really honest. We try really, really hard not to take from other people. Or if we do, it’s a reactionary thing, where it’s like “oh, we can’t do that, we have to do it some other way, because it’s already been done before”. There’s people that will give us license, but it’s never like, hey, let’s do it like CHILDREN OF MEN, which is one of my favourite movies, but it’s like a very soft touch. It makes us really sad if someone says “man, that shot, like the one in PULP FICTION, you guys nailed it, just like PULP FICTION.” We’d be like “Shit!”

JUSTIN: We kind of do the opposite of “homage” movies. Just as much as we can. We get comparisons all the time to Lovecraft, obviously, as well as Clive Barker. And I guess it’s because we’re dwelling in the areas of dark myth. That’s the suggestion we want to make, anyways. It doesn’t exist. But if it did, it would be the kind of stuff you can’t Wikipedia, so that is something that runs through everything we do. SPRING is in Toronto for a limited run until May 21st at Cineplex Yonge and Dundas , as well as a recently-added screening in Montreal on May 21st, courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada and Raven Banner. Keep watching for more dates across Canada as they are announced.                                 Please find this interview online: http://biffbampop.com/2015/05/17/biff-bam-pop-interview-ron-mckenzie-talks-to-springs-justin-benson-aaron-moorhead/  

         

   

   Sinister Cinema Cineplex May 15 and VOD May 22 and DVD June 2. Variety named filmmakers and co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead to its top 10 directors to watch for 2015. According to Variety, Benson and Moorhead “break the mold” in their previous genre bending feature Resolution and Spring, an iconoclastic horror drama that brings infuses new life into a tired old saw. It is a revelation and absolutely fresh in concept and execution. It steers clear of conventional themes of horror by exploring themes of Biblical religion and psychology in new ways. Lou Taylor Pucci is the formidable young actor who plays Evan. He’s mourning the death of his mother and relocates to Italy to reinvent himself. In Pompeii he meets an intriguing woman and falls for her. Thing is, she has a dark and ancient secret that threatens his existence. We spoke with Benson and Moorhead.    

Spring has such originality and imagination and I’ll bet it’s the first time Mount Vesuvius has figured in a horror film. Justin – We were constructing the mythology for Louise. Originally the story was based in Italy because of the visual juxtaposition of the bodies and the beautiful coastline. In creating this mythology we looked at that region and wondered what it had in its history. People know about Pompeii to a certain extent, most people and so it doesn’t require quite as much tricky exposition. The volcano is just frigging interesting! Lava comes out from the top of the mountains. It’s like “Why are you interested in dragons?” The big thing to us was that Louise had a much more unique mythology than you see in fan fiction. Vampires like Lestat are great characters, interesting but his impressions and the way he remembers things have a similar spirituality we all know. But God, a Biblical God was interesting. We put it in ancient Rome, Holy Theism. It was a small story but interesting as someone as modern as Louise talks about the changing of gods.

That’s just one way Spring dispenses with the conventions of horror. Aaron – We weren’t consciously thinking about rule breaking, we like it that way but genuinely we aren’t interested in creating a movie that isn’t our own myth, where our interest lies. We didn’t understand why there is so much repetition and the same story in horror. We wanted to do something a little bit new and profound. Most myths in horror or sci fi fantasy have a social resonance. We wanted to deconstruct the opening beat of a romantic relationship in a way every human can relate to.                        The monster design was so good, so scary that I couldn’t look at it Aaron – We talked a lot about making it actually scary. When you’re leaning on older myths it’s hard. We all know what a vampire looks like. We toyed with that but went deeper. What in nature could actually convince me to be frightened? I am much, much more afraid of a rabid raccoon than a vampire, one can change my life for the worse and one doesn’t exist. So we built a monster based on nature trying to make sure everything attributed to our monster could be found there. It wasn’t makeup based on motion picture references; it was based on natural phenomena. It was incredible. Imagine a Google search to find this.

Lou Taylor Pucci is an incredible actor who is underused. And you’ve given him this incredible original character to play. Aaron – We saw him in Thumbsucker and that was a decade ago and here he is 18 years old doesn’t even look 18 and he’s the emotional core, you can’t take your eyes off him, even against Vincent D’Onofrio and Keanu Reeves. He is the magnetic centre. He doesn’t say a word but we empathise, he says so much with his face and then opens his mouth … and it’s also his earnestness. It’s not just his chiselled jaw. He’s a beautiful dude. He dove in 100 percent and wanted to fully understand Evan. He was just a guy and we realised after the fact that he was playing a role. Lou is not Evan, but he found something about him. He built the character. He said something one time, a little story that reflects on Spring. He and Nadia got along famously but said that one time Vincent D’Onofrio was a romantic lead with someone he despised. Lou asked him how do you do that and Vincent said “You wouldn’t know it because intense hatred and love look the same on camera”. The opening scene in which he is caring for his dying mother tells us Evan is a kind person. In a story like this if he were not, his fate wouldn’t matter. Aaron – He has a sympathetic face and it mattered to us. Being sympathetic is just having the demeanour; it’s one of the tools he has as an actor. You care for him. But he also has to do the work and so do the writers and directors and the casting directors.

How did you find each other? Justin – We were both interns at a commercial production company. Aaron had just come to Los Angeles from Florida and I was one year from staring medical school. I had a year that I did everything. We worked together on low budget commercials and short films and slowly we started working holistically and five or six months before I started med school. I spent all the money in my bank account and we made a short film called Resolution. It got into film festivals and became a full length film and then we had directing careers. What’s next? Will you stay awhile in the horror world? Justin – We have a few projects coming up. Most likely the first we will shoot is Beasts about the infamous British occultist Aliester Crowley. There is a lot to be said about him. In brief, in our story, he’s not a hero or a villain. It’s an interesting story that we haven’t been told about a human being, about weaknesses and disgusting things and being admirable and fun and it seems kind of hokey. But we are earnest about him.                                Please find this interview online: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/justin-benson-aaron-moorheads-spring-breaks-horror-rules/#.VVi28y9MIq0.twitter

     

   

   Josh sat down with the directors of the new genre-bending romance/horror movie Spring. Spring, the latest indie project from the interesting directing duo Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson (Resolution), is a unique juggling act of tones, story and genre elements unlike any other I’ve seen, and in honour of its release here in Canada – more info on when/where you can find it below – I got to sit down with them to talk about how they pulled something like this off and in classic me fashion we instead ended up talking about what makes a great genre movie, some industry tips on indie filmmaking and our love for Spring Breakers. Enjoy.

 So the thing I adore so much about Spring is how you how clear and focused the story you guys are telling is, but you still manage to consistently subvert expectations through genre thrills. What is it about genre, and weaving in genre elements that appeals to you as filmmakers? Justin Benson: That’s a tough one. Aaron Moorhead: I grew up on Stephen King and Steven Spielberg and both of those guys have done genre movies and genre books but I don’t think anyone thinks “Steven Spielberg, Master Of Horror,” they’re more like “Oh, it’s a character movie that happens to have dinosaurs in it.” So, you know, it’s rarely about weaving in – like putting one genre into another – as much as it is about… like it’s just the story that makes the most sense for us to tell. So it just stems organically. Aaron: Yeah, yeah. And it’s way more fun when we get to play in another world. We like fantasy just because our upbringing, probably. Justin: Yeah, yeah. And another thing too is when I think about movies that I saw that made me want to become a filmmaker it’s Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, Pulp Fiction: all genre films. You don’t think about that but they’re all ultimately genre films, right?

Yeah. Justin: I think sometimes when people refer to genre film, when they’re talking about it what they’re really only talking about are these very strict- Aaron: Like Friday The 13th. Justin: Yeah, like a werewolf movie, but ultimately genre film is sooooo much more. Aaron: Can I say something really pretentious? Go ahead. Aaron: We learned a term in Europe… They don’t call it genre film they call it cinéma fantastique and it’s like, that is way more beautiful sounding but is also much more encompassing so all the film festival over in Europe are called “fantastic” film festivals instead of “horror” film festivals and it just means fantastic like… When I first heard it I thought they were just literally saying “these movies are fantastic” [laughs] and it took us having our European premiere of Resolution at one of these films festivals to realize they were referring to the root word “fantasy” and we were like “Ohhhhhh, that’s way more all encompassing.” Yeah, like you can get so many different kinds of films. So another thing I really liked about Spring is how you guys mirrored these shots of the monster with actual organic life (nature, bugs and plants), can you talk a bit about bringing this monster to life in a way where you could mirror it with organic things? Cause that’s got to be a difficult thing to pull off. Justin: Yeah, well the way our monster operates, the conception was just the idea that if a woman could use her embryonic stem cells from getting pregnant then in theory she could have immortality to a certain extent because they replicate infinitely. So there was that idea but not

as like speculative fiction more as like a non-campy, pulp thing – it’s not supposed to silly but it is pulpy, you know. And it’s a fun idea. So it started there and then we got into how her body operates and how it lashes out we started thinking about creatures and our evolutionary past and all that, and the cool part about it was that it connects to stuff like… Why the Xenomorph is so scary, cause it’s nature-based, right? Parasitic. So once we had that then we had the chance to visualize it – something that’s highly visceral that should give people this emotional, psychological kick because it is nature-based and then on top of that; in showing other things in nature, not only to be people emotionally respond to that whether it’s “ew, gross, creepy” or whatever, those are important to the story but they’re also foreshadowing what she is. So it serves several purposes in the story showing all that stuff.  

Yeah. So I also noticed some other motifs in there, again, going off of the monster, of things like rebirth and how it relate historically to the mythology of the creature. I was wonder how you go about inventing something as unique as that, cause those two characters talk about that mythology and at first I was so lost but it all came together as they sort of explored one another, so can you talk a little about that?

Aaron: That’s kind of weird, actually. Just taking it back to the first thing you said I feel like normally when people talk academically about a film you’ve made – or any film, really – it’s really up for debate as like “what’s the theme of the movie?” and people kinda mull it over and they go “I don’t know…” and with Resolution people would go “… I don’t know,” and we’d say “We can tell you what that is!” but people can like NAIL the theme of Spring. Everybody’s like “it’s about rebirth” and we’re like “YEAH!” Justin: [Laughs] [Laughs] Aaron: [Laughs] “YEAH, THAT’S IT!!” you know?! And that’s pretty cool. Like what’s the theme of There Will Be Blood? “… Uh, greed?” Religion’s bad? Or like ego?” [laughs]. But we were talking about the formation of Louise’s mythology? Yeah, and how it relates to the themes of the film. Aaron: What’s really nice, and sometimes it can be begging the questions, but you can look at almost everything that happens in the film as rebirth, and especially Louise’s mythology as she literally births herself. Right. Aaron: So it starts from the most literal and it turns into something a little bit more metaphorical in terms of Evan’s emotional rebirth, the death of his mother and meeting Louise and committing to something after a life of… not. And same thing as her as she is rebirthed emotionally as well as literally in terms of someone never falling in love and finally taking the leap and then, you know, we have physically it’s changing from winter to spring, like that’s a rebirth. It ties together really neatly but we weren’t trying to hammer it, it was organic because we kind of realized it as we were going, which is always the best way. Like, if you’ve read a screenwriting book – and they can be pretty good

as starting points – but a lot of the time they say to start with a theme and make a story out of it and that’s just weird, I think. It’s a good guideline for where like “Hey, where’s the story is supposed to go? Well, what are we trying to say?” Right, like it’s good for seeing how all the pieces relate but sometimes it can block you. Justin: It’s a good thing to eventually figure out. If you let your instincts guide you and let your characters guide you, you’ll find the theme in it and that theme will help you so much more in directing it then it does in the writing of it. Aaron: Yeah, it seems like the theme is more of a descriptor. We’ve been realizing more and more and more as we develop our stuff that alotalotalotalot of knowledge… books, for example – screenwriting books are an easy target because everyone makes fun of them – but a lot of them have it backwards. Like they’re saying “here’s what’s in a 1st act, here’s what must be in a 3rd act” and then from there you come up with your story but actually it should be all of those other things first and then you use the theme to talk about it. And it’s the same thing with Act 1, Act 2, Act 3 like your third act is just fastest way to refer to the last 30 minutes of your movie – like besides saying “the last 30 minutes of your movie” you say “third act, ok, got it” [laughs] but like what must be in a third act?… an ending, you know. [Laughs] A conclusion of some kind. Aaron: And whatever’s in there, there’s not too many rules, you can break them pretty easily and as long as you satisfy yourself (as a creative) and you satisfy the audience then it doesn’t really matter. Justin: Yeah, if it’s an indie film – this doesn’t apply to a studio film usually – but in indie film if the development person, producer comes to you and says “we have a big problem because I can’t identify the inciting action or breaks between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd acts” we would say “no, that’s a good thing.” [laughs] If you wanna pick a reference point

that’s fine but you not identifying them isn’t a problem, so it’s interesting. In a business sense it could be a problem because at the studio level if they look at it and there’s no… This isn’t a story! Justin: Yeah, there’s this basic structure they just always use, and you’re not using it so here’s the garbage can. [Laughs] [Laughs] Aaron: [Laughs] You can get away with a little more in indie film because you’re mostly appealing to an audience of cinephiles who are looking for something fresh whereas at the studio level it’s people that don’t really care about movies, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. And I don’t mean that about the studio, I mean the audience – the people that like movies but don’t like live and breathe them, they’re not like “ugh, I need something fresh,” they’re just like “please, please give me more Mad Max” and I mean that in a good way I love Mad Max and I’m dying to see it. Oh, you’ll love it. Aaron: That’s just what it is. It’s not like “hey, give me something fresh” and that’s the problem so they need to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to pay for the tentpole. You’ll be amazed that Mad Max: Fury Road is a studio film. Aaron: I’m so excited. Justin: But that’s what makes like… Look, if you go make Transformers 5 and it doesn’t have the three act structure and the inciting incident and all that I bet more people would walk away from the movie going “that was weird, I didn’t like that” but that’s what makes something like Pulp Fiction so special; cause it doesn’t do anything of those things and it has such a special alchemy that

everyone is like “I love that movie.” I mean expectation-wise they should be walking away going “that was weird, I didn’t really like it” but they’re not. That’s when you know you’ve got a GREAT movie, right? Aaron: That’s what I’m still trying to figure out because we’re always searching on twitter for Spring so we put “Spring + Benson” (because everyone misspells my name) and all you get is Spring Breakers because of Ashley Benson and people are still discovering that movie to this day and going… Justin: “What the fuck is this shit?” Aaron: “What the fuck is this? This is terrible” Justin: And you look at it and you’re like THIS IS SO AWESOME!! Like how could you not like it?! Since I saw it, to this day, that movie is the background on my phone. Justin: It’s so sick! But why is it Pulp Fiction pulls it off and Spring Breakers doesn’t? Aaron: I don’t know the answer to that. When I saw Spring Breakers – cause I actually worked at a theatre at the time and I saw those people all the time, they came out of the theatre going “what the fuuuuuck” – I thought it was just marketing. They came in thinking it was Project X: Spring Break Edition and ended up getting this provocative, artistic piece and they were like “whaaat?” and in a lot of ways it was an indictment of the audience that was going to see it.

Aaron: Yeah, that’s a really good point, actually. It brought in the people that were going “spring break motherfucker!!!” and then the turn a big mirror on it and go this is wrong. For sure. Are there any kinds of films or genres that you haven’t done yet that really want to explore in the future? Like, what’s next for you guys? Aaron: Yeah, again, we’re not interested in genre so much… Right. Story first. Aaron: Right, but it does seem like we really, probably at some point have got to do a western of some sort, or something that feels like a western even if it isn’t literally one, and we’re probably going to do something that’s a little more straightforward funny – I don’t mean broad comedy, like we wouldn’t do something like Oldschool or Anchorman, but something funny enough that like it could end up in the comedy section of Netflix. Justin: Yeah, it’s tough because… You’ve seen Spring, and you’ll probably see Resolution too, but there’s a lot of humor in them and at a higher level it becomes harder and harder to keep in all of the jokes. We’d argue they don’t break tone as much as lend levity and humanity that’s why we like them and keep them in but it’s gonna be a bigger and bigger fight every time to keep them in. Right. You guys want to embrace all these different elements but I’m sure people tell you to cut it down. Aaron: Yeah, and it’s like no, that’s just a good moment and thus it shouldn’t be cut. Justin: We understand it falls under the thriller genre but that joke is amazing, it must stay, but it’s probably gonna get cut.

Aaron: Spring would be so much less likeable. Even if it wouldn’t be a worse movie, like holistically, because the story is still good but it’d so much less likeable if you were like never smiling. And it resets you too, right? If something’s getting too bleak you throw a joke in. Aaron: Yeah, we do that all the time, very on purpose. And I was talking to somebody (and it was very interesting) because normally you would say tension is a string that you pull very tight, you know, and as soon as you let it go taught you’ve slipped but someone else put it a different way: tension is currency and you cash it in for a joke, and that’s like really cool – It flips it on its head and ultimately what it does is it humanizes everything. Justin: We’ve been lucky to have final cut on the first two features we’ve made but yeah there are notes from amazing people on Spring saying… You remember at the end of the big walk-n-talk when Evan goes to payphone and calls Tommy? Where he goes “oh, you just smoked a huge bowl?” That was a recommended cut because of all the emotion that had come before it they felt the audience wasn’t ready, so we should cut it, but now that it’s done and it’s out there no one has ever said that. Spring is playing at Cineplex here in Toronto every night this week – you can find tickets here – and it comes out on DVD + Bluray on June 2, 2015.                  Please find this interview online: http://thecinemachina.com/2015/05/interview-spring-directors-aaron-moorhead-and-justin-benson-on-genre-indie-film-and-their-love-of-spring-breakers/

 

   An  article  by  Jeremy  Hervieux  ,  published  May  20,  2015    Translated  from  the  original  French  version  (http://cinemaexcentris.com/A-­‐voir-­‐Spring)  -­‐    As part of the VISIT FANTASIA, this monthly event series of films, the cinema and the International Excentris Fantasia Film Festival show Spring Thursday, May 21 at 21:10. Spring tells the story of a young American, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), leaving his country after the death of his mother to go to Italy where he will meet a beautiful, mysterious woman, Louise (Nadia Hilker). While born a romance between the two protagonists, Evan soon realizes that Louise has a monstrous secret jeopardizing their relationship as their existence.

We met the directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, fathers of this work not finished traveling. Your film combines several genres. We go from horror to romance in a snap, and vice versa. How did this general love of cinema? Which movies did you grow up? Aaron Moorhead - It's funny, because I was asking myself the same question the other day. I realized that I've never really been influenced by films such. Certainly, I could name the obvious films like Jurassic Park, Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, but what led me to do what I do today, these are probably the Stephen King novels. As our films, King's novels often contain few characters and offer a very confusing narrative construction, often fantastic. I am influenced by what appears to me as being mythical and atmospheric rather than horror films of series B, for example. Justin Benson - It's the same for me. I grew up with the novels of Stephen King, but also with films like Dazed and Confused, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Boogie Nights ... In short, the very talkative movies of the 90s. Exactly, I believe that this influence can be seen in Spring . The characters are so strong and complex they might be interesting to follow without the horror elements. Aaron Moorhead - Yes, exactly! However, Evan and Louise (movie characters) would not have been able to meet without some kind of film elements. In a sense, the horror was essential to our story. Above all, the film is born with the desire to talk about a character who would be immortal. But we did not want to deal with a philosophical look immortality. We wanted to approach the subject from a funny angle, almost kitsch. I know that Justin wrote the screenplay and Aaron took care of the cinematography. Together you coréalisez. How did this collaboration come about? Justin Benson - It's pretty simple, actually. Aaron and I have the same tastes and the same interests. Together we are one consciousness, one

spirit. If you ask our opinion on a movie or work of art, we may meet the same. We talk a lot in pre-production, and quarrels are rare or nonexistent. There is never a compromise: we both know we want to do the same movie, no matter what happens. We seek only the best route to get there. With its very naturalistic actor game and its fluid camera movements, Spring is a lively film object. Is it that there is an element of improvisation when turning with such a small team? Aaron Moorhead - If Spring seems so alive, it is thanks to our preparation and our good actors. Arriving on set, we execute what we talked about in pre-production. We need to control everything, but we never work with storyboards, unlike other filmmakers. With the success of recent It Follows and Ex-Machina, we see some renewed interest in the unique and intelligent horror stories. Do you think that Spring can claim such success? Justin Benson - Yes, we believe that the film will happen! It is very well received around the world, either by critics or audiences. Because even if it is independent, the film remains very accessible. This is a perfect love story for a first date! Everyone seems to find something to cling to. This may be because of the wide variety of narrative. Over the past decade, movies like Hostel or Turistas dealt with the fear of travel and the unknown. Spring talks about this, but also the fear of commitment and fear of the couple. What we your movie he speaks, in the end? Justin Benson - That's interesting that you mention Hostel. When Evan left for Italy, spectators necessarily expect his trip degenerates like the boys in the movie Hostel. We were very aware, and we had fun with that expectation. The Evan's journey is a false trail: we subverted the codes of pop culture. Otherwise, I think the film is an allegory of the first weeks of all romance, when everything is perfect ... almost. Aaron Moorhead - In a metaphorical sense, the film deals with the physical and emotional rebirth of the character of Evan. There are so

many birth and rebirth in the film that this is necessarily the subject! But Spring also speaks of love, and hope that people go out of the projection in realizing how difficult it is to define and represent love, just as it is difficult to love, period. All relationships are different and should be considered and treated as such. Speaking of rebirth, do you already have an idea for your next film? Justin Benson - Yes. The next project will be about Aleister Crowley, the notorious Victorian occultist. Spring is presented Thursday, May 21 at 21:10 as part of APPOINTMENT FANTASIA.                         Please find this interview online: http://cinemaexcentris.com/A-voir-Spring  Please find the English translated version online: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=search&rurl=translate.google.ca&sl=fr&u=http://cinemaexcentris.com/A-voir-Spring&usg=ALkJrhjMlAgzoyK1hcye3oevRlCNxa8t5g

               

 Spring is the story of an American backpacker, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), who after his mother dies, decides to travel abroad and start anew. Whe he arrives in an idyllic southern town in Italy, he meets the lovely Louise (Nadia Hilker), romance blossoms between the two — but Louise harbours a dark, secret that could destroy the happiness they are hoping to build together.  

Spring is the second feature film written and directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, of Resolution fame. The film has been doing well in the festival circuit, as well as at various special screenings. Last month, Benson and Moorhead were in Toronto for a special presentation of Spring. While here, they made time to sit down with me and discuss a few interesting parts of their film and filmmaking process. Heidy M: The film blends some film genres in an interesting way. Where did the idea for the film come about? Justin Benson: We don’t talk about which genre we’re working in, generally. We just think ‘this is interesting… that is

interesting’. The whole story began with the idea of a woman being able to use her own stem cells to remain immortal. Not as speculative fiction (as in Gattaca), but as an interesting myth / thing we can create. But this would require an act of love, reproduction, sex; so what followed was the idea of making it a romance. The thing is that neither one exists without the other. [There was] never a discussion of blending things. It was more that there was a seed of this idea of creating a new monster, and everything else grew from there. HM: What visual aspects were in mind when creating this ‘monster’? Aaron Moorhead: Placing the monster in a beautiful location and what the monster actually does (attack others) — the visual juxtaposition of the idyllic with the grotesque — is something that thematically works with the film. The fact that it is this feeling you get when you’re in love and something is not quite right… because nothing is ever perfect. Like, ‘what’s poisoning this paradise?’ which ties into the movie in a pretty obvious way. Visually with our monster… we were thinking of great transformations in history like, American Werewolf and more modern stuff like, Hemlock Grove. They are really impressive. But we personally are having trouble finding them scary. And it’s probably because they aren’t really based in nature in any way.

They feel like they’re based on something supernatural. It requires something… outside the law of science. We went back to the scarier stuff that we find visually [striking] like the Xenomorph in Alien. It is so terrifying because it looks like a parasite that we all know. The theory [for the monster] is something that comes from nature; it occupies a space in our minds; deep in our fear. In building the monster, we wanted to seem like she had been sighted in historic times and that is why certain myths were created — like the werewolf or the vampire myth, for example. And somehow these myths all pointed to our own evolution. And no one has bridged that gap; the fact that all of our movie monsters could also be bridged to our own evolution. We think that’s a cool idea! HM: Was the location something you had in mind when writing the script and planning the film? JB: Yeah, the script was written for the Amalfi Coast. Something interesting about the Mediterranean Coast, mixing something so heavenly beautiful with something so grotesque. [As well], I had already been there; I had a mental map in my head. It is so much easier to write when you know where all the locations are. Then it turned out we could not shoot at the Amalfi Coast because it is too expensive for any film. By huge amount of luck, we found the Puglia region. And they opened their doors for us. They actually made it financially viable. HM: The leads Evan and Louise (Lou Taylor Pucci & Nadia Hilker) are receiving great reviews on their performances. Were they your first choices? AM: We tried to cast it through traditional ways with agencies. The person that stood out [as Evan] was Lou. We saw Thumbsucker; that was really it… We thought this film would be a good yet late coming-of-age story.

JB: [For Louise’s role] at first, we could not find anyone for that role. [The character] needs to have an accent you can’t quite place. .We ended up sending an email to all the producers and filmmakers we met throughout the festival circuit with our first film, Resolution. Nadia came back from three different lists. We auditioned her on Skype a couple of times. And right away she had really good instincts for the role. She didn’t try to play the role like a femme fatale.There are other things about Nadia that [work well in the film]. She is impossible to place ethnically and [it plays well with how we reveal her story towards the third act in the film]. She is amazing! HM: The soundtrack is also quite good. Either of you care to talk about it? JB: We were so, so lucky. [The composer’s] name is Jimmy Lavalle. He performs under the name The Album Leaf. It is such a great band. He’s so accomplished… he’s truly a genius. One way we really connect with him is that when Aaron and I are developing material, we don’t go and tell him ‘do this or that’. And he doesn’t ask us if he should do a Hans Zimmer ‘thing’. He literally just watches the movie and comes up with something completely new. If you missed the chance to see Spring on the big screen at TIFF, or at a cinema near you, the film is now available on DVD & Blu-Ray. The discs even have extras totaling more than 90 minutes. Check out the film that has been referred to as Before Sunrise with a supernatural twist.          Please find this interview online: http://intheseats.ca/spring-minutes-directors-justin-benson-aaron-moorhead/

                                                                                           

                                                                                           

Reviews  

Friday May 15, 2015 To The Movies Guest host Piya Chattopadhyay spoke with Metro Morning film critic Karen Gordon about Mad Max: Fury Road, Spring and Dancing Arabs, which open in the GTA today. Please find this review online: http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/columnists/2015/05/15/to-the-movies-84/

 

                       

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s Spring is a love story, a coming-of-age tale and a horror movie. It’s an elegant piece of mashup cinema: Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise with a -monster. In a house in California, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci, of Thumbsucker and the Evil Dead remake) loses his mother to cancer. Shattered and looking to escape, he winds up in the Apulia region of Italy, where he meets a striking young woman named Louise (German actor Nadia Hilker, in her first major English-speaking role).

She’s interested; he’s wary. Both have their reasons. But eventually they get together and spend a few lovely days getting to know each other. And early one morning, Louise sneaks away and eats a cat. The charm of Spring is in how fully it embraces the weirdness of that premise. Benson’s script is as interested in the nature of Louise’s condition as it is in how Evan will react when he finds out what’s going on. And that gives Benson and Moorhead – whose previous feature, Resolution, took similar pleasures in subverting horror tropes even as it celebrated the genre – the space to make a very human monster movie. Don’t read anything else. Just see it. Spring is special. 110 minutes. Some subtitles.                                           Please find this review online: https://nowtoronto.com/movies/reviews/spring/  

           

   

  BY LIZ BRAUN, POSTMEDIA NETWORK FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015 11:51 AM EDT | UPDATED: THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015 12:01 PM EDT  

  Love is strange. That's the take-away from Spring, an unexpected marriage of love story and horror tale that turns out to be fresh, smart and really engaging. Even a not-so-great ending can't overturn everything that came before it. Spring is centred on Evan (Evil Dead’s Lou Taylor Pucci), an ordinary guy whose life is not working out the way he hoped. The movie opens with the death of his mother, followed by a

bar fight, the loss of his job, and a spur-of-the-moment decision to go to Italy until things at home cool down. Evan has no family left, no work and no plans. We follow as he wanders around Italy, goofing off and drinking too much with other tourists, until he eventually finds a little place he likes by the sea. He meets a local woman, Louise (Nadia Hilker) and they begin a flirtation that's obviously going to grow into something more. As with everything else in Spring, their relationship develops slowly; a wealth of detail and a pleasantly meandering pace create fully three dimensional characters and believable situations. Evan takes a job at a local farm run by an old guy named Angelo (Francesco Carnelutti) whose devotion to his late wife is a signal of sorts to Evan about the pursuit of true love. Evan thinks he might be falling in love, but Louise seems far less interested in commitment. Something else is going on with her, as lingering shots of bugs, worms and creepy crawlers can attest, and it's not something pleasant. Spring is full of light and beauty, but there's a vague edge of dread under everything that never quite goes away — until it eventually rears its ugly head.    The horror incidents are fleeting, and all the more ghastly for that. Louise is beset by some strange and terrible condition. By the time all is revealed, Evan has invested so much of his emotional life in hers that he is willing to stick around and find out what, if anything, can be done about it.

Spring is full of the odd and the unexpected, and visually, it's wonderful — a great match of light and dark in the storytelling and the cinematography. I can't wait to see what filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Resolution, V/H/S: Viral) do next. Spring opens in Toronto Friday. It expands to other cities in the coming weeks and is available on demand starting May 25.                                                                Please find this review online: http://www.torontosun.com/2015/05/14/spring-review-romance-gives-way-to-horror-in-smart-coming-of-age-tale

     

   

   By: Linda Barnard Staff Reporter, Bruce DeMara Entertainment, Peter Howell Movie Critic, Published on Thu May 14 2015  Starring Lou Taylor Pucci and Nadia Hilker. Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. 109 minutes. Opening Friday at Cineplex Yonge & Dundas. STC An innovative thriller about the ultimate unattainable woman, Spring fuses lush romance with horror, carried on the brain-tickling pleasure of crisply written dialogue.

Lou Taylor Pucci (Evil Dead, Thumbsucker) is Evan, a California cook who bolts to Italy on a whim after things get complicated at home. He lands in a picturesque Italian village on the Adriatic, where he encounters stunner Louise (German actress Nadia Hilker). The sexily mysterious woman reveals herself to be intelligent and worldly and seems inordinately interested in him — but only on her terms. Evan is curious but wary. What does she want with him?    Their affair seems predestined but there’s something off about how it proceeds. Louise has strange rules. Unexplainable things begin to happen and there’s a feeling of foreboding aided by the village’s dark alleys and hidden passages. Screenwriter Justin Benson, who co-directs with Aaron Moorhead (they previously teamed on Resolution), puts an interesting spin on myths, magic and monsters, enfolding them in a dream-like relationship drama that makes space for brief touches of humour. While not perfect, low-budget Spring takes welcome risks with the creature-feature genre. The leads deliver solid performances, especially Pucci as the seeker who encounters more than he bargains for and yet commits to it.                     Please find this review online: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2015/05/14/wet-bum-spring-dancing-arabs-montage-of-heck-humpback-whales-mini-reviews.html

     National Post - 15 May 2015 Chris Knight, Spring Viewer meets film; viewer loses film; viewer gets film back again. This may be the best way to describe the arc of Spring without giving away too much of the plot, which is by turns sweetly romantic, gorily horrifying and New Age-ily weird. Writer/director Justin Benson and co-writer Aaron Moorhead got a reputation of playing with genre in their 2012 debut feature Resolution, and seem determined to keep it. Lou Taylor Pucci stars as Evan, who takes an impromptu trip from his native California to Italy, and promptly falls hard for Louise, played by German actress Nadia Hilker. She’s sexy and enigmatic, telling her American boyfriend in almost perfect but weirdly accented English: “I’m half undiscovered science, a bunch of confusing biochemistry and some crazy hormones.” That might turn out to be more than just poetically true, as Louise — whose flat includes a poster on evolution, a book in Latin and syringes — starts exhibiting weird, animal-like behaviour. Eventually, the besotted Evan is forced to ask: “Are you a vampire, werewolf, zombie, witch or alien?” The answer may surprise, but once it’s given, the film spends an uncomfortable 20 minutes with the two lovebirds discussing her, um, condition. But a sweet subplot with a sad Italian widower plus a startling final scene make this an ultimately rewarding experience. Spring opens May 15 at Yonge/Dundas in Toronto. ΩΩΩ   Please find this review online: http://www.pressreader.com/canada/national-post-latest edition/20150515/281934541525828/TextView  

                                                       Drafthouse Films, Filmbuff & Anchor Bay are bringing Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's SPRING to Blu-ray and DVD June 2 and we've got the cover and details below. The story conerns a young American in a personal tailspin who heads to Europe to escape his past and falls for a beautiful woman with a dark and deadly secret. The genre-bending horror romance, which has been described as a brilliant cross between Before Sunrise and An American Werewolf in London, comes to DVD on June 2, 2015. The film will also be released on Blu-ray as a Best Buy exclusive on June 2nd - it will be available at retailers nationwide beginning August 11, 2015.

The discs, which have extras totaling more than 90 minutes, have an SRP of $22.98. SPRING received high praise from audiences and critics at film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival (where it had its world premiere), Austin's Fantastic Fest (where Lou Taylor Pucci was named Best Actor), the Los Cabos Film Festival, the Morbido International Fantasy Film Festival in Mexico and the Paris International Fantastic Film Festival, where it was named Best Film. Special Features include: • Audio commentary with writer-producer-editor-director Justin Benson and producer-editor-cinematographer-director Aaron Moorhead • Feature-length "The Making of Spring" • Deleted scenes • SFX case studies • Proof of Concept short • Alternate ending • Featurettes "The Talented Mr. Evan," "Angelo: The Worst Farmer," "Wankster Girlfriend Monologue" and "Evan Ti Odio." • Promo videos • English subtitles for the hearing impaired, Spanish subtitles            Please find this review online: http://www.rue-morgue.com/#!Lovecraftian-love-story-SPRING-coming-June-2/cjds/552ed5e80cf266495e257f40

                                                         

For their second feature film effort, the directorial duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead (the team behind the under-seen meta-horror gem Resolution) have developed a poignant tale of loss and discovery to play their clever,

affectionate brand of genre roulette with. Where Resolution dealt with the tough love of a male friendship through a winking psychological horror about addiction, Spring tackles the often tumultuous dynamic between men and women, and not just in a romantic sense. Lou Taylor Pucci (Beginners) delivers the performance of his career as Evan, a young man left reeling after the loss of his mother. With no remaining family and the police on his tail after an altercation with a

crusty thug at his local bar, Evan takes the advice of his friends to get out of town, randomly choosing Italy as his destination. Once there, he encounters an alluring, mysterious woman (Nadia Hilker) with whom he sparks an off-kilter courtship. Due to the nature of the film's premise and structure, much more so than its execution, most reviews rush to call Spring the Before Sunrise of horror cinema, and while that's an apt and complimentary assessment, it also sells the narrative a bit short. Like Richard Linklater's celebrated philosophical romance, Justin Benson's story exists primarily as a vessel for ideas he's keen to discuss — in this case, misogynistic presumption, the nature of love, fear of mortality, duality, the pitfalls and perceptions of tourist culture, to name a few topics — rather than as a means to check off plot points along the way to a traditional climax. But, while it's primarily a talky two-hander, Spring places great emphasis on peripheral characters and the Italian landscape in which it takes place, describing distinct characters with minimal screen time and giving the proceedings a surreal, dreamlike quality steeped in history. That quality comes courtesy of Moorehead's fluid cinematography; the exquisite characterization is thanks to Benson's knack for clearly defining familiar personality types. The Album Leaf's Jimmy Lavalle is also due serious credit for helping to shape the film's tone with a subtle, unobtrusive score that embodies, by turns, the hazy beauty blanketing the experience and the insidious menace lurking beneath the surface. And when the occasion calls for it, Spring doesn't skimp on horrific freakiness. The special effects are well designed and deployed — just don't go in expecting them to eventually take centre stage. Thoughtful and thought provoking, romantic but tempered by cynicism, creepy but just as often hilarious, Spring is a great alternative to the safe choices of blockbuster cinema and an assured step along the trail of stylistic fusion Benson and Moorehead are capably blazing.      Please find this review online: http://exclaim.ca/Film/article/spring-justin_benson_aaron_moorehead

                            If best-selling authors the-late Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) and Nicolas Sparks (The Notebook) would have ever written material as a team, the result might have been the new independent sci-fi/horror/romance film known as Spring (released on Blu-ray by Anchor Bay Canada and Raven Banner Entertainment on June 2, 2015). Sprung from the minds of writer/directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead (Resolution); Spring stars Lou Taylor Pucci (Sugerland) as a young American named Evan who flees to Italy when his life begins to spiral and falls in love with an enchanting woman named Louise (Nadia Hilker).

 But as their relationship grows, Louise does her best to keep Evan at arm's length and for good reason. Unbeknownst to Evan, Louise is harboring a dark and dangerous secret that could potentially threaten his life the closer he gets to her. As Evan works his way past her walls and uncovers the truth he must weigh the risks of staying with Nadia or getting past the love in his heart for her and move on with his life. Spring is a unique film in that it combines two unlikely genres into one movie and it doesn't rely on the thrills or the fantastical of the sci-fi/horror elements, but rather the characters and the relationship that grows between them. Spring contains scenes of extensive dialogue and development between Evan and Nadia, plus it's set against the perfect back-drop of Italy to tell its tale. When Nadia's secret does comes to light, some excellent visual effects work (both practical and digital) also takes place. Although Nadia's motivations and reasoning never quite comes together cohesively for a viewer, Spring is a bold and risk-taking attempt at doing something on screen never really seen before. The film is technically executed extremely well (including the use of camera drones for certain shots) and is rounded out by a very capable supporting cast, including The Battery's Jeremy Gardner as Evan's best friend. On Blu-ray, Spring is presented in a high-definition widescreen presentation with a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. The picture image is a beautiful one, lush on color but not overly detailed due to an angelic wash the film's look is given. The Dolby Digital TrueHD 5.1 audio track provides a very-well balanced and clear experience for a viewer. There isn't a lot of sound play in the film from the horrific moments but there are a few which are bound to surprise. The disc is also nicely loaded with bonus material with Benson and Moorehead at the forefront with an enlightening audio commentary and an extensive behind-the-scenes documentary full of unique footage and interviews. The edition also provides outtakes, SFX studies, a trailer and deleted scene, plus a digital download copy of the movie.

Spring may not quench a horror fan's thirst, but its unique blend of genres makes the film a unique experience not found so easily in film history. As an independent effort, it really stands out and showcases the gifted abilities of both Benson and Moorehead as writers and directors. The cast is very strong, especially the two lead characters who provide palpable chemistry for a love story like no other and a supporting cast that feels honest and very real as the movie unfolds. The Blu-ray is technically presented beautifully and the movie is backed up by a solid amount of bonus material. For those interested in acquiring the film on video, the edition does more than enough to give you your value for it.       Please find this review online: http://www.examiner.com/review/spring-uniquely-blends-a-sweeping-romance-with-freaky-sci-fi-on-blu-ray

‘Spring’ is a romantic creature feature in which a man desperately tries to win the heart of his vacation fling who is a bit more concerned about her fluctuating flesh. Monsters and romance are not a new pairing. King Kong, Beauty and the Beast and Shrek are good examples in which a connection is established between a woman and her monstrous companion. However the reverse, in which the female is the more ghastly of the two, has not been explored as frequently. In Spring, love is truly blind and completely committed.

Evan’s (Lou Taylor Pucci) life hasn’t gone to plan. College was put on hold to care for his sick mother and now he’s stuck bartending in his hometown. But when all his ties are swiftly severed, he seizes the opportunity to escape. Packing the essentials and buying a plane ticket, he fulfills his dream of travelling to Italy. There, Evan encounters Louise (Nadia Hilker), a beautiful woman who doesn’t seem to really belong anywhere. He falls head over heels for her, but her feelings are more reserved. She harbours a dark and dangerous secret that causes her to keep all her relationships superficial, but Evan may have finally broken through the wall. This is definitely a role reversal in which the woman remains aloof, while the man bears his soul begging to be given a chance and hopefully loved in return. The first half of the film is composed as a typical romance story in which boy meets girl, boy pursues girl and eventually boy and girl fall into be together. However what follows is somewhat less traditional as Louise flees in the middle of the night, trying desperately to maintain her human form. Her ailment is hinted at and viewed briefly going forward, until an undeniable confrontation with Evan forces Louise to come clean and explain her condition. Once it’s out in the open, the monster romance goes into full bloom. In spite of swapping gender roles, the conventional narrative structure in the beginning of the movie is still a bit of snooze. Even Evan’s life spiralling out of his control isn’t noteworthy. However when the first trace of Louise’s disorder is revealed, it naturally piques viewers’ interests and draws them back into the story. At that point, curiosity overrides any sense of tedium felt earlier. And once all is revealed, the eccentricities of her affliction are permitted to further distinguish the picture from the pack with its bizarre yet sweet love story.

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead first gained attention with their co-directorial feature debut, Resolution in 2012, which they followed with a segment in V/H/S: Viral. Like their first film, this movie interweaves two relatively distinct concepts into a single picture. On the one hand, it’s a whirlwind European romance; on the other, it’s a mysterious creature feature. Once these two concepts meet, watching becomes a pretty enjoyable experience. Directors: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead Starring: Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker and Jeremy Gardner Please find this review online: http://www.digitaljournal.com/a-and-e/entertainment/review-it-s-spring-and-all-manner-of-love-is-in-the-air/article/433851

8 June 2015 5:24 AM, PDT | SneakPeek | See recent SneakPeek news » Sneak Peek footage from the sci fi horror romance "Spring" from directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, now available on Blu-ray and DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Raven Banner, starring Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker and Vanessa Bednar: "...'Evan' (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a young American fleeing to Europe to escape his past. Then, while back-packing along the Italian coast, everything changes during a stop at an idyllic Italian village, where he meets and instantly connects with the enchanting and mysterious 'Louise'. "A flirtatious romance begins to bloom between the two – however, Evan soon realizes that Louise has been harboring a monstrous, primordial secret that puts both their relationship and their lives in jeopardy..." Please find this review online: http://www.imdb.com/news/ni58675587/ Please find this review reposted online: http://www.sneakpeek.ca/2015/06/spring-on-blu-ray-and-dvd.html  

Available today from Anchor Bay is this unique film from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, their follow-up to the delightfully mind-bending Resolution. Available on DVD and Blu-Ray this is a gentle, and beautifully filmed concoction that marries the romance film with the monster movie. At the story’s heart is Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), whose personal life is falling apart, his mother has succumbed to the cancer that was eating her away, he’s unhappy in his job, lonely, and his only friend

smokes up more than he does. After a violent run-in, Even decides to get away, reset and refresh. Almost on a whim, he books a trip to Italy, and he is off on a journey he did not expect… As he travels the country, smoking and drinking, seeking the occasional connection, and taking in the beauty of the landscape, he drifts aimlessly. That is until he arrives in a small sea-side town, and meets the vivacious Louise (Nadia Hilker). Immediately taken with the young woman, he elects to remain in the small town for a while, receiving a room, board, and some meager pay for helping out on a farm.

Against a gorgeous backdrop, the two begin to fall for one another, and to the filmmakers’ credit, they allow the film to breath, and take its time, letting the relationship develop naturally, and enjoyably. The two leads have a great chemistry, and their interactions feel organic, they are great together not only as actors but as characters. Claiming to be a genetics student, and blossoming scientist, Louise holds a terrifying secret, brought to life with fantastic makeup and visual effects, that never overshadow the film, or steal from the story’s substance but consistently add to it. As revelations are made, and Evan falls deeper in love, he realizes time may be running out and that the heart wants what it wants – but will it be enough? A surprisingly gentle, strongly crafted effort that, actually would make a great date movie. The film never rushes, the characters have time to react, to grow, and build a foundation for a relationship that you actually care about. It’s as if Before Sunrise were written as a monster movie. Both Pucci and Hilker are perfectly suited to their roles, Evan is disconnected, looking for something, love, family, all the things that have been taken from him, and Louise simply exists, afraid of what the finite and the heart may bring to her. I was very taken in with this one, the pacing, the beats, the craft at work, are all gentle, unrushed, almost European in their sensibilities, and it works as a wonderfully unique take on the love story. Combining pieces of mythology, history, gorgeous scenery and two likeable leads, this one is definitely worth a look, and is available now from Anchor Bay on both DVD and blu-ray. Please find this review online: http://themindreels.com/2015/06/01/spring-2014-justin-benson-and-aaron-moorhead/

This week’s releases include a conventional underdog story told well; an innovative and striking sci-fi movie; a ground-breaking TV series; and a gender-bending love story. Spring (Blu-ray) Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a young American fleeing to Europe to escape his past. While back-packing along the Italian coast, everything changes during a stop at an idyllic Italian village, where he meets and instantly connects with the enchanting and mysterious Louise (Nadia Hilker). A flirtatious romance begins to bloom between the two — however, Evan soon realizes that

Louise has been harbouring a monstrous, primordial secret that puts both their relationship and their lives in jeopardy. Monsters and romance are not a new pairing. Yet the inverse, in which the female is the more ghastly of the two, has not been explored as frequently. This is definitely a role reversal in which the woman remains aloof, while the man bears his soul begging to be given a

chance. The first half of the film is composed as a typical boy meets girl romance. However what follows is somewhat less traditional as Louise flees in the middle of the night, trying desperately to maintain her human form. Once her condition is out in the open, the monster romance goes into full bloom. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead first gained attention with their co-directorial feature debut, Resolution, in 2012. Like their first film, this movie interweaves two relatively distinct concepts into a single picture. On the one hand, it’s a whirlwind European romance; on the other, it’s a mysterious creature feature. Once these two concepts meet, watching becomes a pretty enjoyable experience. Special features include: commentary by writer/producer/editor/director Justin Benson and producer/editor/cinematographer/director Aaron Moorhead; deleted scenes; alternate ending; making-of featurette; “The Talented Mr. Evan”; “Angelo: The Worst Farmer”; “Wankster Girlfriend Monologue”; “Evan Ti Odio”; SFX case studies; proof of concept short”; and promo videos. (Anchor Bay Entertainment) Please find this review online: http://www.digitaljournal.com/a-and-e/entertainment/review-filmmakers-get-resourceful-in-this-week-s-releases/article/434844  

                                                             I detest romantic comedies. They are often decidedly unromantic and terribly unfunny. Throw drama into the mix and it’s even worse: concocted conflicts and clichéd characters. Horror comedies are a more palatable but often hit or miss. Combining all four genres seems like a bad idea. Somehow Spring manages to do that and still be terrific. It’s the best romantic comedy/drama horror movie you’ve seen yet. Opening with one of the most heartwrenching scenes you can imagine, Spring lets the viewer know right away that it isn’t ordinary. Once you’ve been disarmed by that gut punch of an intro, Spring then slides easily into a series of genuinely hilarious scenes. Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) and his friends feel relatable—like people you actually know.

Fucked up? Yes, but also relatable. It’s an ingenious way to draw you into Spring‘s world. Before you know it, things have shifted again. When Evan meets Louise (the luminous Nadia Hilker) there is a palpable chemistry. We are treated to some beautifully written (yet believable) banter between these two. This is not the rapid-fire style of cinematic romance; it’s the way you are your best, most clever self when you’re hardcore flirting with someone that you are falling in love with. Think you’re in store for a smartly crafted love story? Guess again, because Spring isn’t done. What it transforms into is going to make you run to catch up with it. Still, the film doesn’t rely on any contrived twists that demand you to rethink everything you’ve seen so far. It’s far more intelligent than that. Written and directed by the same team who brought us 2013′s insanely great Resolution, Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, Spring is one of the most unique films you’ll see this year. Despite its exceptionally high concept—one that you’ll note I’m trying not to reveal—it’s beautifully naturalistic. Spring utilizes an earthy, yet washed out color tone in the beginning to show how diminished Evan’s life has become. Then we are assaulted with the gorgeous hues of rural Italy. It’s a similar palette but far more vivid, to indicate that Evan is slowly but surely coming back to life. Of course, the most bold color choice is the red dress Louise is wearing when she first catches Evan’s eye. Obvious, yes, but entirely appropriate. Meanwhile, Jimmy Lavalle’s score is a perfect complement to all of this visual and emotional luxury. Granted, Spring isn’t as immediate as Resolution, but it does prove that Moorhead and Benson are some of the sharpest minds in independent cinema. They can make a low-budget movie look, feel, and sound like a million dollars. Spring is a bona fide delight that improves with repeated viewings.

The Blu-Ray release includes a dozen special features including a commentary track from Moorhead and Benson, “The Making of Spring” EPK, deleted scenes, SFX case studies, Proof of Concept, an “alternate ending,” promos from the Toronto International Film Festival and Fantastic Fest, and a few hilarious featurettes that reveal how witty Moorhead and Benson can be, often at their own expense. Spring was released by Anchor Bay Canada and Raven Banner on June 2.         Please find this review online: http://popshifter.com/2015-06-12/blu-ray-review-spring/  

                         A lost and lonely young man who has nothing to live for back home escapes to a gorgeous, sun-kissed Italian seaside town where he meets and falls in love with the girl of his dreams. Doesn’t sound much like a horror flick, does it? Truth is, horror is the most inclusive of all cinematic genres. And while it’s most associated (and unfortunately derided by many) for its slashers and zombie gut-munchers, it’s also expansive enough to welcome in a genre-hybrid like Spring – a beautiful love story and meditation on mortality and life that also happens to be a pretty great horror film.  As the story begins, Evan Russell is at his cancer-stricken mother’s bedside as she takes her last breath. After the funeral, Evan gets into a bloody brawl in the bar where he works. He loses his job and is sought after by the police. With nowhere to turn to and nobody to provide the solace he needs, Evan flees to Rome – a place where he and his deceased dad once planned on visiting.

At a hostel bar, Evan meets a couple of drunken British hooligans who invite him to join them as they drive up the coast. Once there, Evan spots a vision in red sitting on a bench He later sees her again at a bar and strikes up a conversation. Her name is Louise and Evan falls for her fast and hard. She’s friendly but aloof, and is taken aback that Evan wants a date rather than a quick fling. When Evan’s traveling companions decide to move on to Amsterdam, he opts to stay behind.  

 He takes a position as a farmhand in exchange for room and board. When he spots Louise next, he convinces her to go on a date. Louise is coy and guarded, but she ultimately lets her defenses down ever-

so-slightly, and the two tentatively draw closer. They return to Evan’s and make love. However, at dawn’s break, Louise awakens looking like the undead – with protruding fangs, a pallid complexion, and veins pulsating throughout her face. She makes a quick retreat and Evan wakes alone. It’s very difficult to discuss a film like Spring without delving into heavy spoiler territory, so reader beware. Louise is an evolutionary throwback as old as Methuselah who transforms into different creatures at extremely inopportune times. Sometimes she appears vampiric; at other times wolflike. In the most striking transformation, she becomes a slimy, writhing, tentacled, Lovecraftian thing. She’s unable to predict the transformations but is able to halt them through injections of a serum of her own devise.  

The creature elements of Spring are jarring and horrific enough to appease horror hounds, but at its core, Spring is a love story and an examination of two lonely souls meeting and connecting. Both Louise and Evan have pain in their hearts and secrets in their past– it’s just that Louise has centuries worth more. How they navigate their courtship, both before and after Evan discovers her secret forms the backbone of this atypical film and gives Spring its tender, beating heart. Some might balk at Evan’s decision to stay with Louise after seeing her at her literal (monstrous) worst, but in the end, what is love if not seeing someone at their worst and accepting them still because you know what they are at their best. Metaphoric? Yes. Arty? Sure. But it works. Nadia Hilker as Louise is a revelation. She is beautiful, transcendent and mysterious. Hilker carries the burden of the film’s fantastic elements, yet she remains believable and true at all times. Hilker transcends what could have been a typical yet anachronistic “manic pixie dream girl” type – albeit an at times animalistic, at other times slimy and tentacled one – into a character that carries real weight and vulnerability. She is able to convince both Evan and the audience that she is the one worth keeping, even when her transformations require her to do some not so nice things.    The cinematography is another aspect where Spring excels. Co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead render Italy in lush, gorgeous, golden hues, expertly capturing the stunning vistas, architecture and the natural beauty of the Italian village.

Just like Louise, the beauty and serenity of the setting belies nicely with the more sinister underpinnings of what is really lurking beneath the surface.

Genre-hybrids like Spring are a very tricky proposition. The balancing of ingredients needs to be handled deftly, and in clumsy hands, neither genre comes off well and the result is something unpalatable. But when crafted delicately, a genre-hybrid can elevate and transcend both elements. Spring deftly handles both the romance and the horror superbly, and as such becomes something that is profoundly beautiful and uplifting. Highly recommended. **** (out of five)                                Please find this review online: http://reallyawfulmovies.com/2015/06/11/spring/

SPRING 408: The beautiful woman who is more than she seems. An entire race victimized by mankind. The cross-dressing werewolf. This week's episode is all about monsters that aren't monsters. Arthouse romance meets monster movie as Darryll and Desmond review the brand new movie Spring. Desmond goes solo on the first volume of the brand new comic Clive Barker's Nightbreed from Boom! Studios. Then Duane joins Desmond for a review of the cross-dressing werewolf movie Der Samurai. Strap in! There are some face-melting monstrous tunes, too! "Leave Your Skin at the Door" by Ringworm, "The Dragonfly" by Clutch, "From Screaming Graves We Rise" by Diemonsterdie, "The Wolf I Feed" by Napalm Death, and "Look Out, There's a Monster Coming" by Bonzo Dog Band. .: 22 June 2015 :. .: 0:10:15 – 0:39:00 :. Please find this review online: http://www.earth-2.net/podcasts/dreadmedia/episodes/dreadmedia_408.mp3

              Episode : 435 Review : Spring 2:25 – 11:45                       Please find this review online below: http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-18411/TS-986228.mp3

           

Spring [Blu-ray]  Anchor Bay Entertainment Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead Year: 2014 Classification: 14A Duration: 2.40: 1 minutes Ratio: 1080p (AVC) Codec: English (TrueHD51) Language: English, Spanish Subtitles: Number of chapters: 110 Number of Discs: 1 (BD-50) Barcode (UPC): 013132632056 This Blu-ray disc is available at: Amazon.ca According to Martin Gignac June 8, 2015 The horror and romance in the same boat, is that possible? The small independent movie "Spring" proves that yes and it does it in a beautiful way. An American (Lou Taylor Pucci) in full existential crisis fled to Italy to recharge. He meets Louise (Nadia Hilker), a beautiful young woman who is hiding a terrible secret ... Supernatural terrors of films and are very similar. In a rare exception that treats the subject with intelligence and poetry, there is a ton of generic products seeking - often in vain - to raise some chills. "Spring" is fortunately in the first category. In fact, it resembles a known variation of Before Sunrise Richard Linklater where lovers

spend their time walking and talking. Reflections on life, love and time that pass not fundamentally original but which contain some literary pearls. Sometimes the story veers into the gore and if the script had been further developed and the amalgam is working. Especially the staging of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (a duet which offered in the past the solid Resolution ) does not lack elegance and the interpretation is surprisingly high sensitivity and its chemistry. The technical aspects of this Blu-ray edition is acceptable without being amazing. The color palette is accurate, however, lacking sparkle here and there. The contrasts and colors are homogenous, detailed though somewhat more shades would not hurt. The English sound track is immersive at times, taking care to highlight the abundant dialogues. The voices are generally understandable and there are very visible white subtitles when needed. The cover shows a beautiful young woman who seems to turn when the day falls. The main menu of the disc has a series of photographs that scroll on a soft melody. Supplements that provide more than three hours have a tasty bonus commentary track directors, a comprehensive documentary about the shooting, some unnecessary deleted scenes, a disappointing end and many new segments on the special effects, important monologues, the first media, etc. The total although sometimes quantity does not mean quality. Taking the time to properly identify the psychology of his characters and develop an environment and atmosphere (and romance!) That gradually make bad at ease, "Spring" dare to bet different. A great idea that may not be fulfilled all its promises, but offers a more than advisable variation on common and familiar tunes.          Please find this review online: http://www.coindudvd.com/review/horreur/spring2014_bd.html Please find this review translated to English online: http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.coindudvd.com/&prev=search

SPRING (DVD) This article has been translated from French. Spring is a feature film that mixes genres, flirting between romance and horror. In this, he reminds us of the beautiful In your eyes, also released on DVD this year. If the trailer portends us a work full of action, it is not. Spring is a slow film sprinkled with a few supernatural touches and the latter could appeal to a diverse audience. Distribution: Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada Production: XYZ Films 2014 DVD Release Date: June 2, 2015 Genre: romance, horror 1 DVD Duration: 110 minutes

Director: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead Screenplay: Justin Benson Actor (ess) s: Lou Taylor Pucci (Evan) Nadia Hilker (Louise) Jeremy Gardner (Tommy) Francesco Carnelutti (Angelo) Holly Hawkins (Evan's mother) Picture: Widescreen 2.40: 1 Sound: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Subtitles: SDH English, Spanish Supplements: Behind-the-scenes Audio commentary with directors Justin Benson and Aaron

Moorhead SFX case studies Outtakes Deleted scenes Theatrical trailer Evan has nothing to lose. His father died there a little over a year and his mother just died of cancer, he lost his job following a fight with a customer and the police are looking after this event. On the advice of his entourage, he went on a whim to Italy where he meets Louise, a beautiful and mysterious woman. Soon, Evan falls for her, but Louise can not hide his true nature long, placing the young man in front of a big dilemma. From the first third of the work, it is almost always only in the presence of two lovebirds who develop intimacy with unbelievable speed The couple, played by Lou Taylor Pucci and Nadia Hilker is very credible, pushed this adventure believed to be at the start, by the recent chaotic Evan past but could be discovered at the very end the real reasons for this rapid union that will turn into a love story.

The scenario stretches, like a parenthesis in the life of these beings are worlds apart. It is poetic and very pretty and small moments of horror are perfectly justified and well directed. In a secondary role, Jeremy Gardner found that one might just released the film The battery . Spring is a beautiful romance and horror has received excellent reviews since its presentation to the Toronto International Film Festival films. Review by Julie Montpetit (@ juliejadore1) Please find this review online: http://www.lefrelonvert.com/2015/06/spring-dvd/ Please find this review translated to English online: http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.lefrelonvert.com/&prev=search

This article has been translated from French. Synopsis / Presentation Projected premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2014, this second feature Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead contributes to a new trend of American horror cinema, began with It Follows David Robert Mitchell, where a camera over and asked footprint a certain nostalgia can offer fans of the genre an alternative consists of a real auteur cinema ultimately ensuring the scary movies a widely respected and long deserved. Spring tells the story of Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), a young American who gave his life to remain at the bedside of his mother cancerous. Following the death of the latter, the young man takes the plane to Italy where he meets the alluring and mysterious Louise (Nadia Hilker). While a chemistry develops between the two, Evan discovers Louise hides a surprising secret.

In this familiar and agreed premise, the filmmakers built a story at odds with what one might expect from the genre. Their camera sets up comfortably romance between two lovers before tilting the story with the revelation of Louise. Benson and Moorhead fully assume the cliché of "American in Europe who falls for a beautiful stranger" and the subversive make with just enough sensitivity and boldness to create two extremely likeable characters and a very fascinating mythology. The name of Richard Linklater recurring to quote the influences of two directors is not trivial. Spring reminds much Before Sunrise and Before Sunset cult filmmaker rather than Hostel Eli Roth. It is the structure focused on trade and intimacy shared between these two strangers interested Benson and Moorhead, far more than the potential danger that can represent Louise. If the first part of the film may seem slower and more elusive, the second part - following the discovery of the secret of Louise - destabilizes and stimulates thinking. Then slowly tighten the bonds, intimacy is accurate and where the conclusion comes, the viewer is upset. The two filmmakers are obviously of great romantic. And although Spring reminds Let the Right One In the genre, he manages to be distinguished by a singular vision, focused on the human experience where horror becomes the catalyst of possibilities of renewal. Image The film is offered to respected aspect ratio of 2.40: 1 according to 1080p resolution. The film has been shot in digital, the picture shows a general definition of the most remarkable. Details and textures are reproduced with smoothness and accuracy while the color rendering reproduces the intentions of filmmakers. They remain accurate, and fully saturated with no overflow problem. The landscapes of Italy and the work of Moorhead photo management on natural light are reproduced brilliantly here.

The contrasts are well managed and all highlight effect is thus avoided. Gradients are smooth and precise offering dark parts worthily reproduced. Pure and deep blacks complete this transfer. The digital portion is saved from any visible flaws. His A soundtrack in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 format is available in English original. The mix evolves here back. Despite a discreet sound environment, dynamism and presence is strong convincing. The deployment of the sound field is carried out conventionally enough: the front and side openings are clear while the rear speakers properly support environments. They even offer breathtaking surround sound effects, especially during the sequences of "transformation" of Louise where creaking sounds, the viscosity of the bodies is noticeable. The dialogues remain constantly and clearly audible while the soundtrack signed by Jimmy LaValle, offers a stunning mix. The low frequencies are heard on a few occasions and rumble with the appropriate depth. The subwoofer channel is manifested, meanwhile, completely anecdotal. There captioning option in English and Spanish. Supplements / menus We first find a lively audio commentary track by the two directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. The duo are still relevant interventions with particular emphasis on the work of the actors, on the construction stages and their intentions.

A fascinating documentary "The Making of SPRING (1:10:11)" stands out from the crowd. Composed of talks, but also shoot extracts, this documentary makes a complete tour of the various stages of film production, from script to post-production through shooting, tracking, etc. Two deleted scenes (3:44) are also available, but are really just elongated versions of already existing sequences in the final cut. Then come a series of short segments, "SFX Case Studies (1:22)" recounts the construction of a sequence where the special effects are the most successful, "Proof of Concept (2:16)" is a sketch designed by Benson Moorhead and intended to convince producers to invest in their projects, "Alternate Ending (3:45)" is actually a comic celebration of the end of filming, "Toronto Film Festival Promo (1:26)" is another segment Promotional developed by the two filmmakers and demonstrate their humorous side, "Note (1: 56)" is a kind of blooper of a sequence where the character of Evan puts a note to Louise, "The Talented Mr. Evan (1 33) "is a nod to the film The Talented Mr.Ripley," Angelo, the Worst Farmer (2:05) "where one critical agricultural techniques of Angelo, movie character that hosts Evan" Wankster Girlfriend Monologue "is the tirade of a brief overview of the characters in the first minutes of the film," Evan Ti Odio (3:59) "where a villager named Filippo becomes the rival Evan, in black and white! Conclusion Touching, intriguing and just enough horrifying, Spring is a feature film that horror film fans more modest or copyright, will not want to miss. Filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhear offer a fairly unique vision that borrow from several big cinema names and transcend those references to provide a narrative with romantic accents particularly upsetting.

Technically remarkable edition reproduces the intentions of the filmmakers worked in both the photography natural light in the subtle soundscape. Supplements are many and especially informative and relevant, in addition to showing the direction of the caustic humor of the two filmmakers. This is a perfectly recommendable superb editing. Please find this review online: http://www.dvdenfrancais.com/dvd/fr/titres/critique/66836/spring Please find this review translated to English online: http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.dvdenfrancais.com/&prev=search

TIFF Coverage  

Filmmakers Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson have jokes. Lots

of jokes. Anyone that has ever seen one of their always fun post-screening Q&As – locally in Toronto following the debut of Resolution at Toronto After Dark a few years ago or following their world premiere of Spring (officially opening this Friday, May 15, 2015) at TIFF last year – would know that. They have an irreverence to them that makes sitting down with them and keeping a straight face sometimes difficult. They’re a joy to be around, and one hopes that joy never fades from them. It’s that same irreverence that makes their films so thoughtful and out of the ordinary. Resolution was an emotionally stunning, ultra-low budget, genre bending production about two friends – one addict and

Posted Thursday, May 14, 2015

one responsible friend – holed up in a cabin in the woods. They try to patch up their damaged relationship, but they’re also caught in a sinister cat and mouse game with an unseen supernatural force that’s sending them threatening messages. With Spring, Benson and Moorhead take their nuanced approach to character based horror and use it to tell a story about a romantic relationship. It’s about a troubled American named Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) who is trying to blow off some steam by travelling around Europe. In Italy, he becomes infatuated with Louise (Nadia Hilker), a young woman he gets on quite well with — or at least she appears young. Her dark secret is that she’s actually a hundreds of years old immortal. What ensues is a character based romance, and definitely not the horror film that genre fans might expect. It’s ambitious and thoughtful instead of cheap and easily discarded. One also hopes that Benson and Moorhead can keep making these kinds of films even after their eventual jump to bigger projects. We caught up with Benson, Moorhead, and Hilker during their time in Toronto for TIFF to talk (and joke) about their feelings on story, character, and why every film for them has to have some sort of personal connection. With your previous film, Resolution, you guys married a story of male friendship and a drama about drug addiction with a supernatural thriller. With Spring, you guys have mated a romantic drama with a creature film. How exactly did you settle upon this for your next story, and do you generally enjoy playing around with genres in this respect? Aaron Moorhead: [jokingly] Well, kind of like Resolution, we were on a four day bender in a crack den (laughs), and we were talking to a hobo and he just says “I GOT THIS IDEA FOR A MOVIE!” And we just thought, “Oh, thank heavens, because we don’t have any ideas right now. He was just, like, “I GOT A SCRIPT AND

EVERYTHING.” And we were just, like, “Oooooookay, big guy.” Then we see this lump under his blanket and there’s Nadia. Everyone laughs And then you said, “That’s not a script, that’s a woman and I’m calling the police.” Aaron Moorhead: Yeah, I think we really saved a life that day. (laughs) Then we made the movie. Justin Benson: You probably want a real answer, don’t you? (pauses for a while) Yeah, I really don’t know. Everyone laughs My original lead off was going to be to thank you guys for casting Jeremy Gardner (director and star of The Battery) as the drunk, stoner best friend at the beginning of the movie. Justin Benson: (laughs) We have this alternate version of the movie that we want to make. If you’ve seen the Blu-Ray of Resolution that we did and you saw all the crazy shit we did for that film where we just dismantle the whole movie again, but we want to shoot all this extra stuff with Jeremy Gardner so that every time his character is referenced for the rest of the movie, we can just cut back to whatever he was doing back in the States at that time. The characters are always talking about him when he isn’t on the trip. Either that or just randomly throughout the film just cutting to him sitting on the couch doing a bong rip for no reason. (laughs) Aaron Moorhead: Just at the most intense moment of the story, just cut back to him with a title card saying, “Meanwhile, back in America…” (laughs)

Justin Benson: There’s a moment in the film after about an 11 minute, unbroken steadicam shot where Even calls his friend just to see what’s going on, and you never see the side of the conversation in America. We do the same thing in Resolution where we’re playing the humour by only hearing one side of the conversation and letting the audience fill in the blanks. But part of me really wanted when his best friend tells him that he has a monster [for a girlfriend], to just cut back to a shot of Jeremy with his bong. Just weed smoke throughout the air and Jeremy just wondering if he really heard that. Aaron Moorhead: Or the whole movie actually takes place in Jeremy’s head and none of this ever happened. He just wakes up one morning and says “I just had the craziest dream Evan!” Justin Benson: Then he wakes up from the dream where he tells Evan that, to waking up next to Nadia to tell her about this crazy dream he just had about this guy named Evan. Jesus, sorry for that tangent, man. You still have an interview to do. (laughs) Not a problem. This is fun! But it is interesting how Resolution transitions into this film nicely because they are both films that are based out of love between two people. Aaron Moorhead: Totally, even if the love story in Resolution is more of an implied one. Justin Benson: Even though no one says “I love you, man” in Resolution, it’s definitely still about caring for someone more than you care for yourself. Aaron Moorhead: Neither man in Resolution really ever comes out and says that they love the other one, but they do say, “I’m sorry.” Justin Benson: But there is that connection there between the two films. One of the things we were most proud about in Resolution was how we sort of deconstructed the idea of friendship. So the next step

really is to deconstruct a romantic relationship in sort of the same way. We want characters to point out things that are always said in real life, but that never get said in movies a whole lot.

Aaron Moorhead: We wanted to make sure that we could portray romance as something that could be beautiful. Not the genre of romance, but real life romance. Romance and love can be really wonderful, but they’re also almost always trying to some degree. No romance is perfect, but we wanted to get across that it’s not this whirlwind of any sort. The core idea of any romance movie should be simple. Why can’t this relationship that we’re seeing work? What is going to stop them, and what can they do to overcome it? We definitely still have that here, but I feel like a lot of films are dealing with external factors when it comes to those issues. It’s like, “Oh, we’re in the middle of a war” or “I’m rich and you’re poor.” In this case, it’s much more a question as to whether or not these people, on a very basic level, connect in the right way. There’s a bigger question about their relationship on a physical level, obviously, but it still comes back to those same questions people ask of themselves in relationships of any kind. And I think that’s part of why the comparisons that this film has been getting to Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy have been appropriate, because those films show romance as a series of discussions where people continue to find out new things about each other in a relationship over time.

Here, Evan and Louise are talking about weird things, but I think they talk realistically and rationally about these weird things. So how do you keep things realistic when you add a supernatural element to it? Aaron Moorhead: With the dialogue, specifically, there is always this tricky thing where we’re trying to strive for naturalism, but when you think about the conversations that you have throughout the day, you realize that those conversations that you’ve been having probably wouldn’t be interesting to a general audience. You have to find that balance and distill down what exactly is the most interesting conversation that could be had between these people. You need to know that these are two people speaking, and not that there’s someone behind all this writing everything they have to say.

There’s a moment in Resolution where the Chris character is talking about being an addict, and he’s being very frank and emotional about his body chemistry and his addictive nature, which is something people hardly ever see in movies, but that happens all the time in real life. In Spring, when they’re talking about their romantic relationship, there’s a similar moment when Evan tells her that he’s in love with her, and she’s taken aback by him. She questions him by asking him if he ever lusted for someone and mistaken it for love before the feeling passed. That’s something we’re pointing out in the third act of our romance here, but that’s a very real thing that happens in life. It’s an interesting thing that doesn’t come up in cinema a whole lot.

Justin Benson: There’s also another moment where that gets turned around. He asks her why she’s still here, and her reply is really simple. “It was easy to talk to you, and it stayed easy.” It’s not like, “Oh, my God! You’re the most amazing person, and I have to have you!” It’s a more realistic, “I get along with you great.” It works just fine. Sometimes it’s not “Till death do you part” immediately. Sometimes it is, and that’s okay, and part of our movie is that, two. It’s also very realistic for two people to be on different levels of a love/lust relationship, and they still try to make it work. They both don’t have to dive in first. They both don’t have to play it cool. They very much have the ability to come at this from different sides. Love is such a multi-faceted thing. I think a lot of movies like to make it way too pure when it comes to love. For most movies, it is love, it has to be love, it can’t be anything else, boom. There isn’t even really talk of other vaguely or explicitly compatible emotions. Aaron Moorhead: What we’re hoping is that people walk away from the movie, even if they think the romance is unrealistic, is that even if they don’t think Louise and Evan would for certain spend the rest of their mortal lives together, that these characters have pointed out valid, finite things, and that at the very least that they think Louise and Evan would still remain friends even if the romance doesn’t work out. Justin Benson: The nicest thing about this is that I think unequivocally that even if these two can’t be lovers, they would still remain friends. They say there’s the triangle of love: sex, love, and companionship. That’s the thing. Even if you strike out one, you still have the other one or two. Relationships just aren’t built exactly to a form. You can always have one or two of those. And it’s interesting that this film features a hundreds of years old creature as one of the members of the relationship, and this person is only realizing for the first time how loyal another person can be even when all the facts are laid out. I think when most people hear that the film involves a monster, there will be this third act ramp up to something where the audience expects Louise to go crazy,

but really the film focuses again on tangible problems. It always stays grounded in the friendship, and that’s what’s so great about it. Justin Benson: Can I be really candid? The biggest note we continually got when trying to get funding for this film, and the one that we constantly shut down to lead to us completely financing this independently, was because of the third act. Everyone we talked to wanted there to be a chase or they wanted it to be a horror movie. It caused us so much trouble, honestly. It was something that we just really didn’t want to do. That caused us so much trouble with people, but we are just so happy that we did it this way. It was so much more satisfying and so much more real. Aaron Moorhead: It’s one of those things that audiences point out that they like the most about it. Instead of the tension in the third act coming from some secret organization of people who hunt them down or something like that, the unease and tension is best represented early on. We can see that Louise doesn’t have control over her own body. It’s not a malicious thing. It’s just who she is. She can transform at any moment. We like her, and we like Evan, but we also know that if anyone here is likely to get hurt physically or emotionally by this, it would be Evan. It comes from these internal struggles, and not from some manufactured exterior chase from some plot point we just made up to appease someone so they would give us money… Nadia, when you were first approached with this story, did you know in advance what the character entailed, or did you only find out from the script as you were reading along with it? Nadia Hilker: I started reading that script at 2am in the morning. I was so tired. I started and I couldn’t stop. I loved Louise. I always wanted to be like her. I would love to be just like her, without killing or transforming, but I think she’s an amazing badass. She’s the kind of woman I always wanted to be. She has ulterior motives, but she knows what she wants, how to get it, and she has hundreds of years of learned experience.

It’s a huge gift to an actor to give them a character with this much world experience, and you genuinely wonder how this woman will ever be able to relate on an emotional level to this seemingly regular everyday guy. There’s not really a rule. You can do whatever feels right. Justin Benson: Would you say that it’s not really that difficult to play a character with that much history? Because it’s like your grandparents, for example. You know they have wisdom that you don’t have, but they probably don’t know much more than they did when they were thirteen in terms of facts and tangible knowledge. You will still know things that they don’t know, and Evan will know things that Louise in over hundreds of years would never be able to figure out. Nadia Hilker: Exactly. Louise doesn’t have to be this creature because she has found someone that can relate to her just as another human being. You don’t get to have a role this physical – with the creature movement and the noises – and get to play someone who just wants to be respected as a person. Aaron Moorhead: There’s a moment when Evan asks her what her original name was, and she doesn’t remember. Then she asks him if he remembers the address of his childhood home, and she’s kind of shocked that he does. But if you think about it, she has 2,000 years on him, but she doesn’t remember all of it. She remembers maybe the last thirty. She has a human brain. The rest is hazy. She didn’t have more knowledge than anyone else did in the 1600s, but I’m willing to bet that a 14 year old today is smarter than anyone was back then because we now have the internet and live past the age of 25. (laughs) She would take the lessons learned from whenever she was living, and then apply them to whatever she could remember the easiest. Maybe that isn’t the best example, but you get the idea.

Nadia Hilker: Hell, yeah. And if you think about it, culture really reinvents itself every 25 years or so, and she has really been there to see more changes than anyone else could. Justin Benson: This is probably the only time in a film where I haven’t seen a world-weary immortal. When she lives life, she’s mostly always enjoying it. Aaron Moorhead: There isn’t some kind of made up existential crisis. Justin Benson: She isn’t bored. She wants to keep living because she sees everything as getting better! Aaron Moorhead: Louise has a really interesting view on life, death, and spirituality. We can look around and see Presidents change. My life itself didn’t change much from Bill Clinton, to George Bush, to Barak Obama, and Louise’s life didn’t change that much from the Pagan gods of Rome to transitioning towards Jesus. It’s an interesting view on the world. Nadia Hilker: And technology, too. Her life didn’t change much before and after electricity because by that point she had already established who she was as a person. I mean, it’s fun to play someone that old who isn’t jaded.

Justin Benson: She would probably make fun of Anne Rice’s vampires as a bunch of emo bitches. (laughs) Aaron Moorhead: There was this movie called The Man from Earth, have you seen it? It’s from a few years ago. I don’t think that’s a particularly great movie, but I like it really quite a bit for weird reasons, and the main character in it was doing all his things because he was world weary, but in terms of the knowledge gathered, I think we were kind of going for that. In the way that that movie goes into ideas of spirituality in these really grand ways with its twist, we kind of wanted to do the opposite of that. Louise admits that she’s a little person, and that’s how she wants to experience life. She wants to be a regular person and live as much life as possible. You guys financed a lot of this the hard way, so what’s it like mounting almost an entire production overseas and away from the States where it probably would have been easier to fake like you had more of a budget? Does that lead to situations where you fear your vision of the film could be compromised? Justin Benson: It’s so weird because everyone told us that shooting in Italy was going to be horrible and hard, but it was really super easy and positive. The local film commission gave us unlimited logistical support, and even some financial support. That was great. It was pretty simple. And since it was independently financed, it was easy to keep our voice. No one was ever telling us what to do. It was always what we wanted to do from the beginning. Of course, there’s always room for collaboration, but because Resolution was just us, we wanted to do that one more time before dipping our toes into other waters. We wanted to do another film on our terms before opening any more doors. You don’t know what you can do until you can prove the movie is good, you know? You don’t want to deal with someone who might think working with you is a nightmare right away, you know? (laughs) It was really good to make sure that we stuck to our Resolution roots. We just had a bit more money this time.

Aaron Moorhead: I mean, the hope is that we can both just constantly be making these personal films. We get a few scripts sent to us a week. Sometimes more than that. But most of what we get we just don’t have that connection to. It can have a great structure and high concepts, but it lacks that personal thing. I think we both have to feel emotion when we read something, and I don’t think there’s ever a reason to really go away from that. The key is being savvy enough to move up in budget in a way that you can maintain creative control throughout. In a perfect world, we’d love to keep our final cut thing going and keep generating our own material. If something comes along that has a personal touch that we connect to, that would be great. But as far as watering down what we do… I mean, not everything has to make you cry or laugh out loud, but you really do need something along those lines. Justin Benson: There seems to be this misconception – or maybe it’s not a misconception, because it seems to be making a lot of money for people – is that the story or the hook of the plot is what gets people in the theatre. Some people might want to see only that for two hours, but most people stay with something because the story, and more accurately the characters, feel personal to them. You need to show that you care. You have to focus on the story, and it has to be interesting and fresh, but I think a lot of that is Hollywood’s hang-ups. They are so focused

on plot that they become blinded by it. Character is nuanced and something that has to be nurtured. Plot is obvious, and it has to be because that’s the visual stuff on screen. But you rarely know if you have character or not. You have to have those instincts. You have to feel it out more. It’s not mechanical. It’s not quantifiable. It’s hard to know. Even a screenwriting guru that everyone seems to adore or hate like Robert McKee says that, if you’re doing your job right, plot and character are the same thing. That’s it. The plot comes from the character and the character comes from the plot. There’s no other way to do it. It’s very intrinsic. But yeah, we never put one thing over the other, and I think that’s the voice that we always try to maintain and bring. If we feel like that’s being compromised, we can’t get excited about something.   Please find this interview online: http://thetfs.ca/article/spring-awakening-interview-aaron-moorhead-justin-benson-nadia-hilker/