SPRING has a straightforward, somewhat vulnerable young guy, dazzled and confused by an intriguing yet signals flashing lady he’s crossed paths with, tell her “I’d still like to grab coffee or something, sometime. Because I think you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever seen. But that doesn’t outweigh that you might be a mental patient and I gotta make sure that you’re the kind of crazy I can deal with.”  Not long after, with fresh and startling info, he’s compelled to draw a line in the sheets, asking “Vampire, werewolf, zombie, witch or alien?”  Bitter trial experience might have one relating to that line of questioning as a satiric defense against the latest strain of weirdness ‘out there’. However, in this case, the plaintiff is quite serious.

Life in Los Angeles deals ‘Evan Russell’ (Lou Taylor Pucci) some bad hands. Lingering cancer has claimed his mother (his father had died earlier in an accident) and a post-funeral scuffle with a thug at the restaurant he works at gets him fired from his job. Heeding advice from a friend (a stoner who has a flash of sense) Evan hops a plane for Europe. Footloose in Italy, he fatefully meets ‘Louise’ (Nadia Hilker); fetching, fast on the draw and more than un pocino mysterious. Louise is working in the region (coastal Apulia), and seems to know a lot about not just the area, but about art, history, science, medicine, and a few things she won’t divulge. Evan grabs a farm laborer job outside the “that’s amore” town of Polignano a Mare, picks up a smattering of Italian, and gallantly/naively/perilously hopes to find out who this open/closed/challenging/needy Louise really is. Or, uh…what she really is.

Hot sex and a halfway decent quip quotient can be both spectacular and more potentially dangerous than a tiger running into a polar bear, and willing but outmatched Evan is dual handicapped by being (a) smitten and (b) a normal guy, which means he’s too dumb to do the logical thing: run, fast, in any other direction. As for the smart and alluring Spring, our suggestion: can logic, proceed in earnest, to wherever this unique movie can be found. The first twenty minutes or so are a little iffy; heavy on the profanity and Evan’s initial encounter with a pair of Brit louts is less than hopeful. But when they f the f-off and Louise slinks in, you’re a captive. No more beans will be spilled other than that this one-of-a-kind indie operates on multiple fronts—tart romance with sharp quipping, science-fiction with some ingenious-sounding (for the non-geneticists among us) lab gab, age-curated horror spiced with icky-cool effects, sparingly revealed for maximum punch, and a let’s-pack-and-split travelogue of the locales around Bari, Rome, Conversano, Polignano a Mare and for the vulcano perfetto of it—the godfather of all it surveys Vesuvius, puffing impatiently in the background.

Superior naturalistic work from Pucci, 28, and Hilker, 25, honoring the co-direction from Justin Benson and Alan Moorhead, with Benson writing the script, Moorhead on cinematography, each sharing the producing and editing. This was the team’s second feature release (albeit just to film festivals and stray theaters, the only gross figure we can find is a polite $49,970) after their 2012 bow with Resolution. We caught Spring after being wowed by their 2017 knockout The Endless. Keep ’em comin’,gentlemen!

With Francesco Carnelutti, Nick Nevern, Jeremy Gardner, Chris Palko and Vinny Curran. 109 minutes.