+1 (film)
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''+1'' (also known as ''Plus One'' and ''Shadow Walkers'') is a 2013 American
science fiction horror film This is a list of science fiction horror films. 0-9 *''4D Man'' (1959) *'' 9'' (2009) *'' 9'' (2019) A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O *''The Omega Man'' (1971) *'' Outland'' (1981) *''Outpost'': **'' Outpost'' (2008) ...
directed by
Dennis Iliadis Dennis Iliadis (born 31 December 1969) is a Greek film director. He is best known for his work on ''The Last House on the Left (2009 film), The Last House on the Left''. Biography Born in Athens, Iliadis grew up in Athens, Paris, and Rio de Janei ...
and starring
Ashley Hinshaw Ashley Grace (née Hinshaw; born December 11, 1988) is an American actress and model. She is known for her leading role in the 2012 film ''About Cherry'', and for her role in the 2016 Crackle television series '' StartUp''. Early life Ashley ...
,
Rhys Wakefield Rhys Wakefield is an Australian actor and director, known for his roles in Australian TV series ''Home and Away'', the feature film ''The Black Balloon'' (2008) and in season 3 of HBO's ''True Detective'' in 2019. Wakefield's debut feature f ...
, and
Natalie Hall Natalie Elise Hall or Natalie Melinda Hall (born January 25, 1990) is a Canadian actress and singer. She has appeared in various Broadway, film and TV productions. One of her first TV appearances was when she portrayed the role of Colby Chandler ...
. 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. Dennis Iliadis and Bill Gullo wrote the script after Dennis asked himself three questions. He hired
Lola Visual Effects Lola Visual Effects (or simply Lola) is a company that provides computer generated (CG) effects on live action photography for feature films, episodics, and streaming content.  Lola was founded in January 2004 and is owned and operated by the ...
to edit the film and introduce the duplicate effect at the end of the film. It was done using computer-generated animation,
LED displays A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...
, actors, and footage editing. The film first premiered at the
South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...
film festival on March 10, 2013. On July 27, 2013,
IFC Films IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its S ...
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

*
Rhys Wakefield Rhys Wakefield is an Australian actor and director, known for his roles in Australian TV series ''Home and Away'', the feature film ''The Black Balloon'' (2008) and in season 3 of HBO's ''True Detective'' in 2019. Wakefield's debut feature f ...
as David *
Ashley Hinshaw Ashley Grace (née Hinshaw; born December 11, 1988) is an American actress and model. She is known for her leading role in the 2012 film ''About Cherry'', and for her role in the 2016 Crackle television series '' StartUp''. Early life Ashley ...
as Jill *
Natalie Hall Natalie Elise Hall or Natalie Melinda Hall (born January 25, 1990) is a Canadian actress and singer. She has appeared in various Broadway, film and TV productions. One of her first TV appearances was when she portrayed the role of Colby Chandler ...
as Melanie *
Logan Miller Logan Miller (born ) is an American actor. He is known for starring in the Disney XD sitcom ''I'm in the Band'' and he has also voiced Nova / Sam Alexander in the animated series ''Ultimate Spider-Man''. In films, he has starred in ''A Dog's Pu ...
as Teddy *
Rhoda Griffis Rhoda Griffis (born January 9, 1965) is an American actress who has played supporting roles both in independent and mainstream films and television. Life and career Griffis appeared onstage in ''Angels in America'', '' Proof'', '' Collected Sto ...
as Mrs. Howard *
Chrissy Chambers Bria Michelle Kam (born November 3, 1986) and Chrissy Emily Chambers (born October 5, 1990), better known by their stage name BriaAndChrissy, are a singing and acting duo best known for their YouTube channels "BriaAndChrissy" and "Lesbian Love", ...
as Kitty *
Adam David Thompson Adam David Thompson is an American actor known for his roles in ''Outsiders'', ''Godless'', ''Mozart in the Jungle'', and others. Career Thompson made his feature film debut opposite Elizabeth Olsen in thriller ''Martha Marcy May Marlene'' in ...
as Kyle


Themes

Meredith McLean from ''The Au Review'' pointed out that the film had the theme of identity,
identity crisis In psychology, identity crisis is a stage theory of identity development where it involves resolution of a conflict over the 8 stages of the lifespan.(Schultz, 216) The term was coined by German psychologist Erik Erikson. The stage of psychosoci ...
(specifically youth identity) and
narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...
. She compared the film to the mindlessness of the
adolescence Adolescence () is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with the t ...
and claimed the film wanted the viewer to be themselves.


Genre

Iliadis denies that the film was ever a horror film. He claims that it is a science fiction film, according to indienyc.com. However, in another interview with Icon vs. Icon, he explained that he attempted to make the movie interesting while combining several
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
s. In that same interview, he explained that some scenes of the film were horror and the other scenes were tender.


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?''" 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". He then wrote a short paragraph and presented it to Bill Gullo. He converted it into a full script.


Visual effects

Lola Visual Effects Lola Visual Effects (or simply Lola) is a company that provides computer generated (CG) effects on live action photography for feature films, episodics, and streaming content.  Lola was founded in January 2004 and is owned and operated by the ...
helped produce the images of the duplicates interacting with one another by using
visual effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...
and CGI. They used their own facial rig (which they made specifically for ''
The Social Network ''The Social Network'' is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the 2009 book ''The Accidental Billionaires'' by Ben Mezrich. It portrays the founding of social networking web ...
'') 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.


Release


Premiere

It premiered on March 10, 2013, at
SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...
. ''+1'' was released in theaters,
iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
, and VOD on September 20, 2013. For the VOD release Iliadis worked on fine-tuning elements of the film, as he felt that the SXSW release was too "rushed".


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.


Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reports that 75% of 12 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 6.6/10.
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
rated it 60/100 based on six reviews. Jeannette Catsoulis of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' 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." Chuck Bowen of ''
Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...
'' gave the film three out of four stars, commenting that Iliadis did a good job of showing the "existential despair" of narcissism and detachment. Scott Weinberg of
Fearnet Fearnet was an American digital cable television network, website and video on demand service owned by Comcast. The network specialized in horror entertainment programming through a mix of acquired and original series, and feature films. Backgr ...
gave a more mixed review, saying that the film was a "decent, uneven, well-made spin on a very standard horror story". In a mixed review, Geoff Berkshire of ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' 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.


Acquisition by IFC Films

On July 27, 2013,
IFC Films IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its S ...
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.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:1 (film) 2013 films 2013 horror films 2013 independent films 2010s science fiction horror films 2013 horror thriller films American horror thriller films American independent films American science fiction horror films American science fiction thriller films 2010s English-language films Films about parallel universes Films directed by Dennis Iliadis Fiction about meteoroids Time loop films 2010s science fiction thriller films 2010s American films