The modern-day Gothic fairytale, Spike (US-2008; dir. Robert Beaucage) has arrived on DVD. In case you haven't been paying attention, check out this article on Undead Backbrain to find out what it's about.
Synopsis:
Tales of beasts in love with beauties are as old as recorded history, spanning from the myth of Cupid and Psyche to The Hunchback of Notre Dame; from Hades and Persephone to The Elephant Man to King Kong. While Spike nods at the archetypal precedents, it twists and overturns genre conventions to explore previously untapped strata of the fairytale turned nightmare.
Spike is the monstrously mutated suitor who builds a forest lair in which he dwells for several years while awaiting the arrival of his “beauty” - a girl with whom he shares a history, and whom he has idolized his entire life.
The girl and a group of friends find themselves, by no coincidence, stranded in Spike’s forest. The Beast kidnaps his Beauty. Spike also injures her boyfriend and holds him hostage. Thus begins the girl’s quest to recover her ill-fated lover from Spike -- whether through reason, charm, coercion, or violence -- while her friends try to recover her.
Spike maneuvers through the dark tensions of a monster’s love and the depths to which a beauty may sink to evade it, arguably becoming monstrous herself. In the end, we must uncomfortably agree that, as Spike himself says, “There is always some madness in love.” Spike gives that madness life. (Wonderphil Productions website)
Trailer:
Here's some more stills, in a video format:
Three very short clips from the film can be seen on the spikethemovie YouTube channel. One of them is below:
Fangoria quotes director Beaucage on the subject of his film's atypically cynical attitude toward Spike's romantic theme as saying, "That derives from my own pessimistic outlook. If a real-life Beast fell in love with a Beauty in a modern world without magic or enchantments, the resultant events, for all parties concerned, would be nothing short of dreadful.”
The monster itself was created via physical and makeup FX by Jordu Schell. Commented Beaucage:
Schell specializes in photorealism in building creature characters. I don’t want anyone thinking ‘monster suit’ while watching SPIKE; I want them to think, ‘What is that thing?’
Below is some test footage of man and monster suit:
For reviews of the film -- some very positive indeed, go to the Maverick Entertainment website.
The DVD can be bought from Amazon.
- Source: Information researched by Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood.
- Spike official website
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