There's a moment of dread in Spring when, shortly after getting involved in a bar brawl, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) catches the next flight to Europe and arrives at a hostel. That feeling of dread derives from the ominous feeling that you're in for yet another torture porn movie along the lines of Hostel. Fortunately, Spring couldn't be further away from a generic and predictable horror movie if it tried - indeed, in many ways it's hard to qualify this as a horror movie at all, since it has just as much in common with Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, capturing the rhythm and texture of a burgeoning romantic relationship. Not long into his stay and Evan meets the beautiful Louise (Nadia Hilker, destined for great things on the strength of her perfomance here). She has a dark secret, but Spring takes unexpected U-turns away from the femme fatale trope, and despite the Lovecraftian undertones it's ultimately a touching examination of young people falling in love, tentatively testing the limits of their relationship.
