beautiful creatures of the night!

JAVAFLIX Savannah came through again! It was even the film I had voted to see!! Who cares that it was released last year? Not me!
"Spring" follows a young man, an only child and only son, who dropped out of college to tend to his dying mother. His dad had died a couple of years earlier, right before his mom was diagnosed with cancer. When the film opens, he is holding her emaciated hand. They are having a normal conversation, with his mom telling him a story. Then she stops talking. It takes him a moment to realize that she has died, still holding his hand.
He realizes that California is not the place for him. His best friend is a serious pot head, his bar job is going nowhere, and he has no ties to the place now. He takes his passport and goes to Italy, a place his dad had wanted to take him.
There, he meets some drunkards and hangs with them, just idling.
Then, enter Louise. She's bold, she's beautiful, she's vibrant and full of life!
She and Evan begin an affair to remember. What he doesn't know is that she is just in it for the sperm. What she doesn't know is that he doesn't give up easily.
Even when he discovers a syringe and thinks she may be an addict.
Even when he finds an outrageous, fearsome, dying creature in her apartment.
Even when he realizes that creature is her.
He even saves the creature's life, thereby saving hers.
THEN he freaks out.
This girl that he loves, who seems to be 22 but is actually more than 2000, metamorphoses into a monster.
But he regains control after talking things over with his best friend. That man has just smoked a bowl and is stoned out of his gourd, so that means "situation normal"... right?
And this isn't the first time he has seen someone he loves change into a monster. That's what the cancer did to his mom.
At least Louise is able to regain her lovely self.
Well, until the moment when her body determines whether she will become a new person by reabsorbing the fetus or become mortal and have the baby the good old-fashioned way.
Oxytocin is the magical hormone which will make the difference. Will she admit to her love of him and renounce her immortality by producing the hormone that stimulates birth contractions and lactation? Or will she morph and consume him?
Either way, he will sit and talk with her, holding her hand.
I really loved the movie, loved the story, loved seeing Italy again! The discussion was quite lively, too, with another scientist present. And Patrick had all kinds of extra tidbits to share about the writer and directors and their journey to make this film. Nice!
But, honestly, I would have liked it with or without the discussion.
You see, ever since the spring of 2013, I've been a sucker for monster romances. That spring, I saw "Warm Bodies" three times. Its monster was a zombie, a monster in limbo, waiting for the change to occur.
Louise was a monster in limbo, too, undergoing a big change every twenty years. That's when her body would change twenty percent, based on the genetics of the fetus growing in her womb from whatever sperm donor she had netted.
More recently, I watched "The Age of Adaline"
mentioned in passing here. Adaline was a monster, in human form, like Louise, unable to age, caught in limbo. Yes, I know folks will say that film doesn't fall into the same category as the other two, but those folks would be wrong. Adaline had to move every so often, so the townspeople wouldn't notice her unchanging appearance and lack of gray hairs. She finally was able to have a friend close to her own age... a blind woman. But Adaline's horror was was internal; she had to live with watching her daughter become an old woman, with the knowledge that her daughter would die before she did.
Those were all monster romances, with the monsters waiting and hoping for an end to their loneliness, to be accepted as they are.
Only then would they be free to change.

That was not the case for the film Cinema Savannah brought to town on January 24th. "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night" was billed as an "Iranian vampire western" by Jim Reed. Close enough to true, but not really.
As in, it wasn't a western, it just had that desolate feel to it, due to the drab landscapes and desert scenes.
The vampire was a lost young woman, dancing to music when she wasn't feeding on vagrants and pimps. She was so accustomed to being alone that she didn't realize, or remember, that company would be a nice change from her solitary existence. She was in limbo, waiting without knowing she was waiting.
The difference between this one and the other three is her inability to change. She would still remain a vampire, a monster, even with love on her side.
I will say this: the ending of this movie was perfect.
Perfect.
I would see it again just to see that ending.
Maybe JAVAFLIX will have it for next month. I hope so! I cast all five of my votes on it!