This movie came up when I was looking at lists for recommendations of body horror and I had never heard of it before. I do absolutely love the subgenre and figured if it was getting such good reviews and making it onto lists of “must see” obscure movies of the subject that I should at least check it out. And what better place to watch a horror film that I am casually interested in than here?

Evan is a decent enough guy that is dealing with a lot of shit. His dad died, he had to take a crap job to take care of his mom with cancer, and then he got fired from that crap job for getting in a fight when an asshole started shit on the day of his mother’s funeral. Instead of dealing with the possible legal repercussions of that fight, he flies to Italy where he meets a beautiful woman, Louise, and decides to get a job on a farm so he can attempt to woo her. Unfortunately for him, this beautiful woman is also dealing with a lot of shit. Hers is more of the body transforming and accidentally murdering things type. Can those two wacky kids find common ground and a little bit of love under the Tuscany sun?

I gotta say this barely qualifies as a horror movie. Even the way that the transformation stuff is shot is often regularly more like sci-fi than horror. Which makes sense given that the film does present everything as being scientifically explainable, if not currently then it would be eventually. It isn’t like “oh no, the curse of the werewolf” as much as it is “stem cells and genetic memory”. While there are a couple scenes that lean into it a bit, the majority of the movie is concerned with Evan’s struggle to find his place in the world and his romance with Louise. If you come into this expecting a creature feature or agonizing body horror stuff, you will probably be sorely disappointed. Which isn’t to say that it is a bad movie but that it doesn’t exactly on what you might assume given the genre and the poster.

It’s a good thing that the movie is as well shot and acted as it is, since the genre bait-and-switch could have definitely made me much more soured on this than I am. Once we finally get the explanation for what Louise’s deal is and what is going on with her; you get pulled into her backstory and what life must have been like for her. The idea of giving up our lives for love and whether or not we even have a choice when it comes to making that decision is an interesting direction for a horror movie to go. If you aren’t a fan of romance or drama, though, you probably wont get as much out of this than you otherwise might. Also, once you stop and think about it you realize that these two have known each other for barely more than a week and Evan’s impulsive declaration that he could spend his life with Louise is romantic and all but maybe also your mom just died and you shouldn’t be making that decision.

An eminently watchable film that is not everything I hoped it would be but managed to keep my attention despite that.

Score: 3 out of 5