Blood hits the fan in writer, now director, Brian Duffield’s, coming of age love story that could come to an end at literally any moment. Sure the idea that love can come to an end for various reasons already exists, but it’s really if ever been done like Spontaneous.
The movie impressively juggles a tones equal parts lovely at the same time as it’s truly terrifying circumstances. As if high school seniors didn’t have enough to handle and deal with, now the senior class of Covington has to worry about spontaneously combusting into nothing more than a pool of their own blood at any moment. Why? Drugs? A curse? We don’t know and we won’t ever know. That sort of conclusion can hurt a movie but in this case it’s just the ending a movie like this warrants. The movies lead sums it up best in her inspirational end of the movie monologue.
The premise fully lives up to its potential, resulting in an effective unpredictability, fatal and painful to watch for all the right reasons. I often felt anxiety that a death could happen at any moment and for the most part they do, even though there is usually a 1-2 second window where you can anticipate something bad is about to happen. So Fair warning, this is a very gory movie. Sometimes the bloody deaths are caught on screen with some out of focus CGI trickery though usually the incidents take place off screen with what’s left, flying on screen, soaking characters in horror. The incidents are never portrayed distastefully, solely for comedic effects, strictly for horrific intent or for shock value alone, how they happen, why they happen and when they happen just work extremely well.
Genuine performances go a long way for a movie and it’s leads, Katherine Langford and Charlie Plummer easily take it the distance. They continue to grow as actors I love to see on screen.
It’s already a damn good movie I feel like I haven’t seen before but it gets double points with me for using “Bye Bye Life” from All That Jazz.
Honestly, my only complaint is with the movies poster. Like what did they do to Charlie Plummer’s head???
The Spectators' Odyssey 