Nina Forever

The work is fresh, unique, and entertaining. It may not have the scope and depth of a great work, but it is certainly good. This is what is good. The photography is guided by an almost nostalgic staging, with the hard shots of a modern view as counterpoint. The sex scenes are so well shot that they are not pornographic, but all the stuff of modern soft * is there. We are aroused, but the acts are blended with this crazy, complex mix of macabre and psychological challenge that move us away from banal voyeurism to actively dealing with the absurd position of the characters. The staging for the camera is right out of the 40's at times, and posed perfectly for effect. Great camera direction. The actors give enough to make it work, and that says a lot for them, as this is a very tough film. It moves in a space between black comedy and drama, which is a dangerous place to put actors and camera, easy to bog down, go flat, or list from one genre to another. Acting would have to be light, with dramatic effect made by the mise en scene supporting the effort of the players. This can be said of any film, but in this film, it is a critical necessity. The camera gives us absurd without humor or pathos, simply the view expressing the element of the shot. Which leads to... The score. This film could never be what it is without the brilliant sound craft. Score, and sound effects have become an other art form in the digital era, and carry a bigger, more fundamental role in creating motion picture work. This film owes lots to a really brilliant scoring, working precisely with the camera for cinematic affect. This work must be taken as, not a giant, but certainly a shot at form and structure off the path, and done well. Hey, kids, don't try this at home.

So this is a horror comedy that revolves around a lot of sex. The plot is about a guy's dead girlfriend that comes to haunt, taunt and latch onto her boyfriend. And his new girlfriend when they have sex or do something kinky. The messages in this is about moving on, inner pain, falling for someone for the wrong reasons and what could have been if things were a bit different. The movie does seem to drag at times and does get quite repetitive from time to time. I did like the dark tone in this film and how it goes into a more realistic direction when it comes to relationships and why certain people fall for each other. Falling for the idea more than the actual person and his or her personality. Despite the supernatural stuff with the nosy dead girlfriend popping up. I thought it was a interesting and original flick, but it did get boring at times and just wanted it to just move on. It gets pretty depressing watching two character just mope around and having sex while dealing with inner pain. Overall, I give this one a 6.9/10 for it's originality and message. 6.9/10

I think the directors were inspired by other movies when they made this but the result is not to well. The main issue is that it follows the same scenes over and over again, the couple is making love, the dead ex-girlfriend mysteriously appears from under the sheet and so on. After one hour I had to stop it and finish the film two days later, it was that boring. Maybe more complex it was better and not so humble with the story, the only good aspect is the acting witch wasn't too bad and Nina's appearances who were creepy, at least for me. Only to watch by fans of the resurrection, blood, tender and horror all this put together in a film and you get Nina Forever.

It would be easy to just boil it down to: nudity and intercourse - with added dead girl, whose pretty bloody. And not blood from her period I might add. But there is a lot more here than just the obvious. The story itself is so far out, that you wonder how the person who wrote it came up with it. Some would call it wicked, others outright crazy I reckon. Whatever your take is, you can't deny a certain appeal this will have (for obvious reasons). But while it's tough to decide what some might find arousing and others a turn off (having someone watching you having sex alone is surely to divide people). Also: How many mattresses can a person buy? Like for real, it's messed up (literally). But the ideas are crazy and you'll either like it or hate it. I'm not sure I would want to be in the position the guy is in. Then again ... But whatever the case it's haunting and it's refreshing and the ideas keep coming (well as you can imagine not the only thing ...).

I wouldn't exactly put this film into the "HORROR" genre, although it gets bloody at times. Similar to "Burying the Ex", without the comedy, it's at least worth the watch. The extremely awkward sex scenes are very interesting and the lead actress is gorgeous. These scenes made me feel like I was doing something wrong by watching. I watched this film simply because I couldn't find anything else. While I'm glad I saw it, I can pretty much guarantee that I won't watch it again. It's definitely not "buy the DVD and add to my collection" material, but it tries. So....bored? Give it a shot!

The work is fresh, unique, and entertaining. It may not have the scope and depth of a great work, but it is certainly good. This is what is good. The photography is guided by an almost nostalgic staging, with the hard shots of a modern view as counterpoint. The sex scenes are so well shot that they are not pornographic, but all the stuff of modern soft * is there. We are aroused, but the acts are blended with this crazy, complex mix of macabre and psychological challenge that move us away from banal voyeurism to actively dealing with the absurd position of the characters. The staging for the camera is right out of the 40's at times, and posed perfectly for effect. Great camera direction. The actors give enough to make it work, and that says a lot for them, as this is a very tough film. It moves in a space between black comedy and drama, which is a dangerous place to put actors and camera, easy to bog down, go flat, or list from one genre to another. Acting would have to be light, with dramatic effect made by the mise en scene supporting the effort of the players. This can be said of any film, but in this film, it is a critical necessity. The camera gives us absurd without humor or pathos, simply the view expressing the element of the shot. Which leads to... The score. This film could never be what it is without the brilliant sound craft. Score, and sound effects have become an other art form in the digital era, and carry a bigger, more fundamental role in creating motion picture work. This film owes lots to a really brilliant scoring, working precisely with the camera for cinematic affect. This work must be taken as, not a giant, but certainly a shot at form and structure off the path, and done well. Hey, kids, don't try this at home.

A fabulous concept, lots of problems but well worth an hour and a half of your life. For a first film, this is awesome. Its flaws are all of inexperience - an over-egged script and some logical but emotionally unconvincing physicalisations of the dead girlfriend. Its strengths are of original talent, a cast that's much better than the budget would suggest and an utterly unique point of view. One of the strengths of the movie is the actress who plays the living girlfriend. She could be Ruth Wilson's sibling and brings a similar level of interest to the most ordinary moments. The rest of the film is adequate for the purpose - which is exactly what it needs to be. Cinematography and locations are unobtrusive and allow the concept room to breathe. I hope the filmmakers draw the right conclusions and move onwards and upwards. Hey guys, if you're ever in Los Angeles. look me up!

Having looked forward to watching this film as a possible modern horror classic, I was disappointed - very. The story sounded interesting - one which would open up a multitude of opportunities for exploration and artistry. Unfortunately, it never really developed into anything at all. THe pace was painfully slow at the start, and continued all the way though the film. Really the only reason for watching this is to see the incredibly beautiful Abigail Hardingham (who plays Holly) naked on many occasions throughout the film. Although I can see what was trying to be produced, it seemed to be more of an extension of some film school project that needed some severe editing to stop the audience nodding off part way through. So, watch this if you want to see Abigail Hardingham - otherwise go and do something more interesting, like watching your laundry go around in the machine.

I felt that this was an interesting premise and I really enjoyed the first half hour of the film. However I have to admit that ultimately by the end I was left with an overall feeling of disappointment and missed opportunity. The overall highlights were the scenes between the main character Rob, Cian Barry, and Nina's parents. Nina's first appearance is also striking but I felt the scene itself was too rushed and the build up and gradual indications that Nina was in the background could have been handled with greater subtly which would have created more tension. However after this excitable rush to reveal Nina the second half of the film drags so there are definitive issue with the pacing of the film. In some instances the casting was also far from ideal. The actress who played Holly, Abigail Hardingham, was a very natural and engaging presence, hanging on in there with the relationship despite all of the bizarre difficulties because she wanted to appear "dark" and not "vanilla" and to be committed to her first real boyfriend (although in reality the actress is too pretty to have been "left on the shelf"). However Holly is given no back story and due to the underwriting of her character we become increasingly frustrated that the motivations of Holly become blurred in the second half of the film as her love for her rather dull boyfriend starts to become diluted. There are two serious problems with the film. The first is the casting of Fiona O'Shaugnessy as Nina herself. The character as written and acted is a highly un-haunting presence. Nina as portrayed in the film is lacking in charm, beauty or personality. Her mocking baby like voice is so irritating that you'd have probably been glad to see the back of her not be so haunted by her to the extent that you couldn't move on from her!! Not to be ungallant but Ms Shaughnessy is also much too old to be playing the fantasy girlfriend role – more suited to the bitter divorcée! -and this unbalances the whole film. The last half hour was a bit of a drag and the other serious problem, the "twist" ending of switching over the "curse of Nina " to Holly, was silly and felt tagged on. The Writer/Directors., the Blaine Brothers, should have had the conviction to retain faith in the subtext of people being unable to move on from a relationship. If we had a much sweeter and charming Nina and a more grown up conclusion ( perhaps along the lines of Morettoi/Grimaldi's "Quiet Chaos" ) in which eventually Nina disappeared because the main character was able to finally move on we would have had a poignant conclusion and a more consistent tone to add to the humour and interesting premises. Instead the filmmakers resorted to immature gimmicky that betrayed the original theme of the film. So maybe next time gentlemen make a film that has the conviction to respect people's intelligence rather than assuming film goers need juvenile sarcasm and a twist ending?

NINA FOREVER is a weird, low budget British horror comedy that has no horror and no comedy. I'm not really sure what it is or what it even wants to be, expect to say that it seems to copy the American comedy movie LIFE AFTER BETH in the tale of a guy who keeps being haunted by his dead girlfriend, killed in a car accident. What it boils down to is that NINA FOREVER is a mess of a film. It's long, slow, and has a boring script that drags the viewer down through endless dialogue scenes that go around in circles and add nothing to the narrative. The only thing it succeeds in being is grotesque, with lots of icky sex scenes in which a bloody corpse comes into play. I also found the whole film to be oddly depressing because it's so poorly achieved. Unlike other reviewers, I didn't have a problem with Fiona O'Shaughnessy's acting as the oddball Nina. She's weird and has an annoying personality, yes, but I thought that was the point. No, my problem is with the two protagonists in this film, both of whom are hopeless. They're given characters so one-dimensional that they might as well be caricatures; both have zero personality, and there's no reason to like them. They meet up in the film and decide to have sex right away, only to find out there's some ghostly stuff going on. So what do they do? Not have sex? No, that would be too easy. Instead the film follows them as they repeatedly try to make things work in the bedroom, which I found ridiculous. There's more to life than sex after all. It doesn't help that Cian Barry and Abigail Hardingham aren't very good actors either, although at least the latter has a nice figure, and perhaps the reason for her casting was her willingness to show it off. In any case, NINA FOREVER is a tough film to watch, purely because it's so dull, vapid, and pointless, and it actually made me feel depressed about human existence. Surely we're not all this shallow?