Spontaneous (2020)

Spontaneous review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

There’s a darkly comedic yet insightful observation to this teen horror picture. The premise centers around a high school senior randomly exploding in class, leaving the classroom a bloody mess. Nobody knows how it happened and everybody is scared. What if it happens again? Well, it does happen again. And it continues on, baffling the students and the government why this particular class of teenagers is exploding.

Of course, when it happens just once, not everybody takes it seriously. Approaching this event with a relatable level of confused nihilism is Mara. She narrates her story, talking about how the girl who exploded wasn’t someone she knew all that well. Yet because she died, Mara can’t help but feel as though she should feel something more. All she really thinks about is her best friend Tess and her new boyfriend of Dylan. Dylan, treating the explosion as a wake-up call, makes a gutsy play to ask out Mara and have a relationship since they could very well explode any day.

The day seems to loom closer as the entire senior class continues to explode. The government can’t figure out why, trying every sort of drug and experiment to figure out what is causing this. They think they have found a cure but it turns out to only delay the explosion and doesn’t really work. The teens continue to grow fearful while the adults can merely assure them that the kids have their thoughts and prayers.

From that literal line in the film, the allegorical connection seems obvious, talking about school shootings. However, the topic isn’t so simple because, unlike gun violence, there isn’t an easy solution of legislation to prevent teens from exploding. Instead, the film is more of a contemplation of how fleeting life can be for students when it seems like they have zero control over their fates and adults cannot help them. It’s understandable how Mara later becomes a nihilistic drunk, staggering around in a depressed stupor trying to enjoy what could be her final days.

The frequency of the explosions becomes a source of dark comedy after a while, the way the high school becomes a bath of red and a testing facility finds itself mopping up so much blood and guts. But the good news is that there’s also some genuine charm to the relationship of Mara and Dylan. It’s not just some dead-pan hook-up of desperation but a remarkably sweet and heartfelt connection made during a time of uncertainty. There are a lot of quiet and funny moments between the two that exist outside of their concerns about dying. The romance is built up to such a degree that you really do hope both of them make it out of this situation alive.

For such a concept, there comes a time in the third act when the film must get serious about what exactly it’s trying to say. The film thankfully doesn’t give an easy excuse for the spontaneous combustion that runs rampant throughout an entire grade. Instead, the film makes the case for contemplating your mortality and trying to enjoy what little life you may have. The film ends on a wildly positive note by Mara essentially giving the middle finger to what fate may have in store for her and aiming to be everything she’s ever wanted: hippie, entrepreneur, President of the United States, anything she wants.

Spontaneous has a surprising amount of teeth for such a mixture of teen romance and horror with a satirical edge running throughout its veins. It also has one of the most hopeful notes to go out on for a film that essentially is about loss and existential dread. How I wished I had a film like this when I was in high school.