In the aftermath of The Cabin in the Woods and You're Next comes +1 (or Plus One), another inspired genre film which at first embraces recognizable characters, plot points, and visual elements and then flips them on their head, as well as the audience's related expectations. It is the new film by Dennis Iliadis, the gifted director of the modern, studio financed version of The Last House on the Left, which proved far more astute, atmospheric, and frightening than most expected. The storyline unfolds at a debauched suburban festivity the night a meteor hits the earth, releasing a mysterious and pulsating electric charge. The characters are of the traditional variety: the moon-eyed male lead, his charming and horny best friend, and an angry girlfriend with whom he hopes to reconcile, as well as a shy girl who projects disdain for the social sphere she quietly wishes to inhabit, a local drug-dealing thug, and so on and so forth.

The provocative and smartly unexplained supernatural twist: a presumed rift in the fabric of the universe lets the revelers see and interact with perfect copies of themselves from the recent past. Each time the lights go out, the doubles move closer in time to their original counterparts. The predicament raises a list of questions both philosophical and practical. Should the original react with warmth or violence toward their past self or avoid him or her altogether? Is the chance to see oneself 15 to 20 minutes ago also a chance to right a wrong or opt for another course of action, and might doing so, however large or small the change, produce a dire consequence? And when the two timelines reunite, which version of each person will be left standing (if either)?

This small masterpiece of genre invention pushes its science-fiction concept in a number of neat irections: at times playful, at others brutal and intense, generating multiple ambitious set pieces and mind-bending moral conundrums along the way, building to an anxious and tantalizing conclusion worthy of debate and speculation. It is elevated further by a game cast who truly share a certain convincing, relaxed, John Hughes style camaraderie and the director's sharp eye for color and composition, never failing to realize the full potential of the spacious, brightly lit house where the majority of the film is set. +1, however unexpectedly, is among the year's coolest and most entertaining films.

A-

nope

Not everything is a jihad, Magnus.

Neat concept, fairly mediocre, uninteresting execution.

5/10 ( C )