+1 (film)

+1 (also known as Plus One and Shadow Walkers) is a 2013 American science fiction horror film[1] directed by Dennis Iliadis and starring Ashley Hinshaw, Rhys Wakefield, and Natalie Hall.[2] The film is about four college students, David, Jill, Teddy, and Allison, who attend a party. When the party is set back in time an hour into the past, there is a duplicate of every single person in the party doing what they were doing an hour ago. The plot revolves around the characters' unique actions.

+1
Directed byDennis Iliadis
Produced byGuy Botham
Screenplay byBill Gullo
Story byDennis Iliadis
Starring
Music byNathan Larson
CinematographyMihai Mălaimare Jr.
Edited byYorgos Mavropsaridis
Production
company
  • Process Films
  • Process Productions
Distributed byIFC Films
Release date
  • March 10, 2013 (2013-03-10) (SXSW)
  • September 20, 2013 (2013-09-20)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Dennis Iliadis and Bill Gullo wrote the script after Dennis asked himself three questions. He hired Lola Visual Effects to edit the film and introduce the duplicate effect at the end of the film. It was done using computer-generated animation, LED displays, actors, and footage editing. The film first premiered at the South by Southwest film festival on March 10, 2013. On July 27, 2013, IFC Films acquired the U.S. rights to +1. On January 14, 2014, IFC released the film on DVD for the first time.

Plot

While on the phone with his girlfriend Jill, who has moved away to attend college, David prompts her to explicitly wish that he were there to see her compete in a fencing tournament, only to surprise her with an unplanned visit. After the competition, David approaches Jill's similarly attired opponent from behind and flirts with her, thinking she is his girlfriend. Intrigued, she kisses David, and Jill storms off angrily after walking in on them. Later, David meets with his friend Teddy, a sex-obsessed student who tells him that Jill will attend a house party later. Hoping that she will speak with him in person, David attends the party, too.

A meteor lands near the site of the party, and electrical arcs cause a momentary blackout. The wild revelers do not notice brief, anomalous phenomena that occur during the blackout, such as a mirror image out of sync, but a drug dealer's girlfriend outside the party becomes spooked. As the raucous party proceeds, David searches the house for Jill, and Teddy attempts to charm Melanie. To Teddy's surprise, Melanie invites him to join her upstairs in ten minutes. Meanwhile, David spies on Jill as she flirts with a friend, and Allison, an outsider, unsuccessfully attempts to fit in. David attempts to apologize to Jill, but she becomes more angry with his fumbled apology and says that he makes her feel replaceable. The party moves outside, and the house empties except for David, Teddy, Allison, and Melanie.

When Teddy joins Melanie upstairs, he finds her naked on a bed. They proceed to have sex, and she steps into the shower afterward. During a second blackout, a duplicate of Melanie appears on the bed, surprised to find Teddy in the room. When the original Melanie exits the shower, the two Melanies come face-to-face, and Teddy flees the room in a panic. David confirms that the house has filled with duplicates of the party-goers, who repeat the actions their originals took ten minutes ago. Outside, the drug dealer and his duplicate get into a violent confrontation, and David watches as one of them murders the other. Worried that the duplicates may be hostile, the originals attempt to hide. Eventually, the duplicates disappear.

With each blackout, the duplicates momentarily reappear and reenact increasingly more recent actions. David becomes convinced that he can save his relationship if he crafts a better apology to Jill's duplicate, Allison befriends her duplicate, and Teddy accidentally ruins the rendez-vous between his and Melanie's duplicates. Teddy warns the others that his duplicate will now become belligerent, and he convinces the party-goers, most of whom are still skeptical, to hide from their duplicates in a pool house. When the duplicates reappear, David knocks his own duplicate unconscious and charms Jill's duplicate, and Teddy's duplicate attempts to convince the skeptical crowd of duplicates to attack the originals.

Worried about their safety, several of the originals sneak out and murder their duplicates, which turns the enraged duplicates hostile. The originals retreat back to the pool house, and the duplicates lay siege. The next blackout causes the duplicates to appear inside the pool house. The crowded room erupts in violence, and several people die, including Teddy. David tracks down the original Jill, who had wandered back to the house, and he murders her so that he can be with her duplicate. Allison seduces her duplicate, and they share a kiss. The final blackout causes the duplicates and originals to merge. David and Jill leave together and make their way to the pool house and have a make-out session. The confused party-goers stagger out of the pool house, and they begin to disperse. Two meteors, like the original, are shown passing through the sky and appear to be leaving Earth.

Cast

Themes

Meredith McLean from The Au Review pointed out that the film had the theme of identity, identity crisis (specifically youth identity) and narcissism. She compared the film to the mindlessness of the adolescence and claimed the film wanted the viewer to be themselves.[6]

Genre

Iliadis denies that the film was ever a horror film. He claims that it is a science fiction film, according to indienyc.com.[7] However, in another interview with Icon vs. Icon, he explained that he attempted to make the movie interesting while combining several genres. In that same interview, he explained that some scenes of the film were horror and the other scenes were tender.[8]

Production

Script

In an interview, Dennis Iliadis said that he asked himself three questions:

  • "what would happen if you could meet yourself?"
  • "What would happen if you were in the same space with yourself and both versions of you were going after the same thing?"
  • "what if this space was a wild party where all of the emotions are raw and "there's no time to be intellectual and process things?"[9]
I don't think the key word is “horror”. I think the film is more of a science fiction thriller. At the same time, these things help me take this science fiction idea and bring it into the horror genre once things get out of control. It's definitely a genre bender in the sense that it combines a lot of different elements. I think it belongs in the science fiction thriller mold, but it's a genre film that combines a few things.[10]

— Dennis Iliadis, interview with Diabolique Magazine

Dennis chose to set the story at a teen house party because of the risk. He wanted it specifically because it was "fun, raunchy, and messy".[7] He then wrote a short paragraph and presented it to Bill Gullo. He converted it into a full script.[8]

Visual effects

Lola Visual Effects helped produce the images of the duplicates interacting with one another by using visual effects and CGI. They used their own facial rig (which they made for specifically for The Social Network) to make the duplicates. They recorded a person interacting with another person wearing the same clothes, and then they would recreate the scene in another facility with a rigid chair inside a bank of LED panels that surround the actor. They then merged the footage together in order to create the duplicate interaction footage.[11]

Release

Premiere

It premiered on March 10, 2013, at SXSW. +1 was released in theaters, iTunes, and VOD on September 20, 2013.[12] For the VOD release Iliadis worked on fine-tuning elements of the film, as he felt that the SXSW release was too "rushed".[13]

DVD

IFC released +1 on DVD on 14 January 2014. The special features include a commentary track, visual effects behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes, interviews with cast & crew, poster gallery, cast auditions, and trailers.[14]

Reception and criticism

Rotten Tomatoes reports that 75% of 12 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 6.6/10.[15] Metacritic rated it 60/100 based on six reviews.[16] Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times made it a NYT Critics' Pick and called it "a fleet and frenzied sci-fi tale with more on its mind than alien gate-crashers."[17] Chuck Bowen of Slant Magazine gave the film three out of four stars, commenting that Iliadis did a good job of showing the "existential despair" of narcissism and detachment.[18] Scott Weinberg of Fearnet gave a more mixed review, saying that the film was a "decent, uneven, well-made spin on a very standard horror story".[19] In a mixed review, Geoff Berkshire of Variety called it a "trippy oddity" with "a tantalizing visual puzzle that demands full attention, even as the flavorless characters and largely so-so performances risk audience indifference." Berkshire states the film's "overriding misogyny" may be intentional satire.[3]

Acquisition by IFC Films

On July 27, 2013, IFC Films acquired the U.S. rights to +1. Jonathan Sehring, the president of IFC films, claimed that the company intended to introduce the film to a wider audience.[20]

References
  1. "Shadow Walkers (2013)". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on October 24, 2014.
  2. "5 Questions With Ashley Hinshaw From '+1'!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  3. Berkshire, Geoffrey (24 September 2013). "Film Review: '+1'". Variety. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  4. "Rhoda Griffis". Metacritic. ViacomCBS.
  5. "Chrissy Chambers". Metacritic. ViacomCBS. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
  6. McLean, Meredith (2015-03-02). "DVD Review: Plus One (USA, 2013)". The AU Review. Retrieved 2020-10-18.
  7. "Interview: Dennis Iliadis (Director – '+1')". Indiewood/Hollywoodn't. 2013-09-20. Retrieved 2020-10-13.
  8. Price, Jason (2013-09-17). "Director Dennis Iliadis Discusses The Challenges of Making 'Plus One'". Icon Vs. Icon. Retrieved 2020-10-13.
  9. Webb, Charles (2013-09-20). "Interview: Director Dennis Iliadis Breaks The Timeline In '+1'". MTV News. Retrieved 2020-10-13.
  10. Hanley, Ken W. (20 September 2013). "Interview: Dennis Iliadis on "+1"". Diabolique Magazine. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  11. Astle, Randy. ""We Treat the De-Aging Process Like Plastic Surgery": Edson Williams on +1's Visual Effects". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 2020-10-13.
  12. Hall, Jacob. "EXCLUSIVE: '+1′ PICS SHOW OFF THE FILM'S SEXY, CREEPY SIDE". Screen Crush. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  13. "5 Questions With '+1' Director Dennis Iliadis!!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  14. Coffman, Jason. "+1 (Plus One)". FilmMonthly. Retrieved 2020-10-30.
  15. "+1 (2013)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  16. "+1". Metacritic. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  17. Catsoulis, Jeannette (September 19, 2013). "Revelers, Pause to Meet Yourselves". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 3 July 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  18. Bowen, Chuck. "Film Review: +1". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  19. Weinberg, Scott. "FEARnet Movie Review: '+1' (aka 'Plus One')". Fearnet. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
  20. "IFC Midnight Picks Up U.S. Rights to Dennis Iliadis' Supernatural Thriller '+1'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2020-10-17.
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