10 Horror Movies That Weren't What Anyone Expected
2. Spring
The marketing for Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's Spring largely emphasised that it was predominantly a body horror movie with fringes of romantic drama, but in reality, these genre ratios are actually reversed.
Spring is far more of an unconventional romance and character drama than it is a horror movie, revolving around a young man, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci), who, while grieving his mother, travels to Italy and meets a woman (Nadia Hilker) who is in fact an ancient, shape-shifting mutant creature.
Spring is less interested in a gory monster rampage than it is in the interplay between these star-crossed lovers, enough that the film really has more in common with Richard Linklater's Before series than your average Lovecraftian horror joint. As such, it's a true genre hybrid.
Rather than cynically using a shallow romantic angle to try and cross over to other demographics, Spring is a genuinely romantic film that happens to center around a non-human entity.