Nina forever
Under the covers with 2016’s other revenant.
Few debut features have impressed in the last year like Nina Forever. ‘A Fucked Up Fairy Tale’ reads the tagline, but the fantastical elements, which are, indeed, every bit as messed up as the tagline promises, are carefully grafted onto a very real, recognisable world. Imagine Ken Loach remaking Hellraiser and you’re kinda, sorta, in the ballpark.
Nina Forever introduces us to Rob (Cian Barry), a supermarket employee who’s grieving for the loss of his girlfriend, Nina (Fiona O’Shaughnessy), in a car accident. Slowly, tentatively, he begins to move on and even starts to date co-worker Holly (Abigail Hardingham) – a sticky situation made all the stickier by a blood-soaked Nina resurrecting herself in the bed each time Rob and Holly have sex.
“Years ago, I was working in an off-licence, and, very sadly, one of the regular customers lost his daughter in a car accident,” says Ben Blaine, younger sibling of Chris. Tagged, naturally enough, ‘The Blaine Brothers’, they’re the co-writers and directors of a string of ace comedy shorts, and Nina Forever manages to be supremely funny while never being anything less than entirely sincere (and tremendously moving) about grief and depression. “Just witnessing the change in him was very affecting,” Ben concludes.
From this seed grew a movie that was 10 years in the making, though the first draft of the script was penned in a month once all the elements came together (“I was walking up a hill and Nina’s voice was suddenly in my ear,” says Ben). It is, for want of a better term, a horror-comedy, but the Blaine Brothers were always focused on story, not genre(s).
“One influence we did have was Let The Right One In, in the way it’s so much more than a genre movie – it’s a fable about relationships and growing up,” says Ben. Chris nods, adding: “And it’s set in a world that feels very mundane. We’re not horror aficionados. We can’t watch gore on screen, so it’s weird to be making a film with so much blood! It just came out in the writing. We talked about grief, and the feelings you have – it feels horrific, and fucked-up, and messy.”
Having played to raves at the SXSW festival in Austin, Fantasia in Montreal and FrightFest in London, Nina Forever is premiering on DVD, BD and VOD in the UK, though the Blaine Brothers are doing a theatrical roadshow. “We’re going to take it [ around the country] bit by bit, and always go along for Q&As,” explains Chris, stressing they want to go the old-school route of building a movie by word of mouth.
It shouldn’t be hard. Watch Nina Forever and you’ll be desperate to spread the word. JG
ETA | 22 february Nina Forever is out this month.
‘We’re not horror aficionados. We can’t watch gore on screen!’