Written by Kevin Scott, More Horror.com
Plus One (2013)
Directed by: Dennis Iliadis
Written by: Bill Gullo and Dennis Iliadis
Cast: Rhys Wakefield (David), Logan Miller (Teddy), Ashley Hinshaw (Jill), Natalie Hall (Melanie), Rohan Kymal (Angad)
“Plus One” may not seem like a straight up horror film. I found myself watching it early on and debating its horror chops. Maybe a little drama, maybe a little sci-fi swirled in. Thriller may be where you might find this disc residing in a bricks and mortar video store, if such a thing exists anymore. I’m going with horror though, and I can back it up by saying that “Plus One” goes where it’s really scary. Something supernatural happens and turns the volume way up on all the natural stuff like unrequited love, jealousy, anger, self-preservation, loneliness, paranoia, and the most terrifying of all adolescence.
David goes to visit his girlfriend, Jill at her school, and gets caught kissing another girl. She’s bored with him anyway, and has been hanging on to the relationship for sentimentality’s sake. Seeing this as an out, Jill cuts him loose. He gets that tired old chestnut of “I’m changing David, and you want to stay the same.” Devastated, he carries a torch for her, and will stop at nothing to get her back.
Flash forward to the mother of all parties that would break every neighborhood ordinance ever, and could only exist on film, and in every teenage boy’s dreams. A true spectacle of debauchery with alcohol, strippers, and hook ups galore. A really bad place for David to see Jill again after their break up. He’s there with one thing in mind, get back together with her. That proves easier said than done when he’s got some competition for her affections. She disses even worse this time, and goes off with the other guy. Here’s where it gets strange.
Something (maybe a meteor) crash lands and produces a weird spastic electrical disruption that not only makes the power flicker, but also creates a doppelganger for everyone at the party. Everyone’s double seems to be in some sort of a short term “Ground Hog Day” rewind, and every time the power goes off and comes back on, the moment becomes closer to the present.
The best part about “Plus One” is how everyone handles this disruption in the Space Time Continuum. David gets another chance with Jill’s double, with a prior knowledge of the right and wrong things to say. David’s friend Teddy gets a threesome he wasn’t planning on (not that that’s a good thing), and everyone else strolls through this strange party setting of suburbia lit with Home Depot Christmas lights, and glow sticks thinking they saw something they are not quite sure of while the Hip Hop pulsates in the background. It’s surreal and you can feel the complacency of everyone that neither embraces it or fears it up to the point where it can’t be ignored anymore.
What sets “Plus One” apart is a really smart build of tension and an escalating sense of panic dulled by alcohol and poor judgment. As the past and the present get closer to meddling together, both sides become self aware that there may not be enough room for the both of them. Who’s who and who is good and who is bad lights a fuse that leads to a classic horror moment that had a really cool “Body Snatchers” vibe that validated my instincts that this can be called a horror film. It would have been way simpler if Doc Brown had been right about what happens to the Space Time Continuum when you meet yourself. Give this one a chance as something that takes a recipe of tropes such as a killer party, a meteor crashing, an evil doppelganger, and boy loses girl, and whips it up into something really unique, thought provoking, and downright chilling at times.