NINA FOREVER (Ben Blaine, Chris Blaine). 98 minutes. Opens Friday (February 12). See listing. Rating: NNNN
There are lovers you can’t forget, and there are lovers who cling to you. And sometimes there are lovers who won’t let go – even after they die.
This premise has fuelled a dozen horror movies, and now there’s Nina Forever, which doesn’t take it in the direction you might expect.
In English sibling filmmakers Chris and Ben Blaine’s first feature, Holly (Abigail Hardingham), a withdrawn young shop clerk, falls for a damaged co-worker (Cian Barry). But their budding relationship is impeded by his dead ex (Fiona O’Shaughnessy), who comes between them – nude, bloody and very cranky – every time they have sex.
I know, I know. Plenty of horror movies have employed ghosts as metaphors for emotional baggage, and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser built an entire messy sub-genre out of it. But Nina Forever does something new, exploring the inconvenient reality of repeated visits from a gore-soaked revenant and how that presence can put its own pressures on a couple. (You do a lot more laundry, for a start.)
It isn’t even a horror movie, really. I think it’s something entirely new – a kinked romantic comedy with a creepy, queasy edge we’ve never seen before. Happy Valentine’s Day.
