Nina Forever, 2015.
Directed by Ben Blaine & Chris Blaine.
Starring Fiona O’Shaughnessy, Abigail Hardingham, Cian Barry, David Troughton, Lee Nicolas Harris and Elizabeth Elvin.
SYNOPSIS:
A man is haunted by the restless ghost of his dead girlfriend after he finds a new love.
Having lost his girlfriend Nina (Fiona O’Shaughnessy) in a car accident, and following a failed suicide attempt, Ben (Cian Barry) meets Holly (Abigail Hardingham), herself recently dumped after being called ‘vanilla’, and the pair enjoy a blossoming relationship. However, whenever the couple have sex Nina’s bloody corpse appears in the bed with them and taunts them, which proves to be slightly problematic as one would imagine.
An interesting premise and one that nods to a few other tragic love stories with a gory twist (Hellbound: Hellraiser II and Return of the Living Dead III immediately spring to mind) so it is no wonder that Nina Forever has picked up something of a buzz since it was shown on the festival circuit last year. And a lot of the praise is deserved as it is a film that shows potential for those involved, especially directors Ben and Chris Blaine, who manage to convincingly set a tone that could have gone in completely the opposite direction given the plot, and actress Abigail Hardingham who turns in a rock solid and quite brave performance as Holly, but let’s not get carried away as Nina Forever is also flawed, punching way above its weight and not always hitting the intended target.
The main reason for this is in the writing, which is also down to the Blaine brothers. The setup for the story is very good, introducing Holly as the downtrodden girlfriend of somebody who does not appreciate her, calls her vanilla but very nice and still wants to be friends, and Ben as the sad figure mourning the loss of his loved one, but once the couple have been through the trauma of Nina interrupting their lovemaking and trying to think of ways to stop her tormenting them the film seems to lose focus, as if the Blaine’s didn’t quite know how to wrap it up with a satisfactory explanation as to why Nina keeps returning. After trying several different things to try and keep Nina from returning, and after Nina’s parents – in a needless plot diversion that doesn’t really add anything – have opened up to Ben about his moving on with Holly, the film doesn’t really have anywhere to go and seems to meander to a close in that distant and dreamlike manner that low-budget indie films seem to do when they don’t have a definite conclusion and run out of steam (i.e. you have to make your own minds up why things have happened the way they did). There is an answer in there somewhere, and the Blaine brothers really are trying to hit home some points about love, sex, relationships and death, but it is never made obvious which, in this case at least, may have been the way to go rather than the ambiguous ending that we got.
But writing issues aside, Nina Forever does have a lot of good things going for it. As previously mentioned Abigail Hardingham really sells the character of Holly and delivers a performance that demands a lot of things that many an up-and-coming young actress probably wouldn’t want to do. Cian Barry and Fiona O’Shaughnessy also deliver noteworthy performances, and when the three of them share the screen (and bed) together is when the film really takes off and goes into the realms of the unpredictable that, when done properly, makes low-budget filmmaking an exciting melting pot of ideas. It also hammers home the fact that the bits in between those scenes do tend to drag a bit at certain points. Mention must also go to the excellent David Troughton as Nina’s dad Dan, who doesn’t have a lot of screen time but makes the most of it when he does.
Obviously, given the nature of the story, there is a lot of sex and blood in this film and while the sex scenes are very well shot and don’t shy away from showing off all of Abigail Hardingham’s natural charms, they do serve a purpose and are an integral part of the plot. The mixing of genre styles helps enormously, as although there aren’t any really straight comedic moments there is a vein of black humour that runs through it, offsetting the potential horror of the situation and almost lightening the mood, despite the fact that Nina keeps reappearing in the state she was killed in, her limbs twisted and broken and her body caked in blood, giving her a similar appearance to a J-horror ghost.
Overall, Nina Forever is a pretty original film that presents an intriguing premise but doesn’t quite deliver the satisfactory conclusion that the setup really deserves to make it the all-encompassing experience it really should have been. Nevertheless, for the most part it is fun, sexy, is confidently shot and well-acted, so for something a little out of left field that isn’t as drippy as Zombie Honeymoon or as serious as Spring then Nina Forever is worth a look. Just don’t believe all the hype.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
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