The metaphor of the memory of an ex being embodied in a reanimated corpse is one that works, but it gets old quickly. The relationship seems doomed from the start so there are no stakes, and as only a metaphor who talks trash, Nina poses no real threat. It is all in their heads.You could argue that this is the major plus point of the movie; it is very psychological and dissects the destructiveness of certain thoughts. The story itself is pretty tight; girl thinks suicidal guy is cool, says more about her than him, she ends up being the one haunted. There is a lot to say there on mental health, wanting to be different, and the classic 'careful what you wish for' moral lesson. The problem is that most of this could have been conveyed in a short, so the metaphor becomes very repetitive. There is a lot of 'maybe this will fix it?' to no avail, this works as a pretty accurate portrayal of real life problems, but it doesn't make for a very entertaining movie.Overall there are enough plus points here to say that it was a story worth telling, it just seems like it might have been better served in book form, especially since the same story has also been told better through film before.

NINA FOREVER is a weird, low budget British horror comedy that has no horror and no comedy. I'm not really sure what it is or what it even wants to be, expect to say that it seems to copy the American comedy movie LIFE AFTER BETH in the tale of a guy who keeps being haunted by his dead girlfriend, killed in a car accident.What it boils down to is that NINA FOREVER is a mess of a film. It's long, slow, and has a boring script that drags the viewer down through endless dialogue scenes that go around in circles and add nothing to the narrative. The only thing it succeeds in being is grotesque, with lots of icky sex scenes in which a bloody corpse comes into play. I also found the whole film to be oddly depressing because it's so poorly achieved.Unlike other reviewers, I didn't have a problem with Fiona O'Shaughnessy's acting as the oddball Nina. She's weird and has an annoying personality, yes, but I thought that was the point. No, my problem is with the two protagonists in this film, both of whom are hopeless. They're given characters so one-dimensional that they might as well be caricatures; both have zero personality, and there's no reason to like them. They meet up in the film and decide to have sex right away, only to find out there's some ghostly stuff going on. So what do they do? Not have sex? No, that would be too easy. Instead the film follows them as they repeatedly try to make things work in the bedroom, which I found ridiculous. There's more to life than sex after all.It doesn't help that Cian Barry and Abigail Hardingham aren't very good actors either, although at least the latter has a nice figure, and perhaps the reason for her casting was her willingness to show it off. In any case, NINA FOREVER is a tough film to watch, purely because it's so dull, vapid, and pointless, and it actually made me feel depressed about human existence. Surely we're not all this shallow?

I felt that this was an interesting premise and I really enjoyed the first half hour of the film. However I have to admit that ultimately by the end I was left with an overall feeling of disappointment and missed opportunity.The overall highlights were the scenes between the main character Rob, Cian Barry, and Nina's parents. Nina's first appearance is also striking but I felt the scene itself was too rushed and the build up and gradual indications that Nina was in the background could have been handled with greater subtly which would have created more tension. However after this excitable rush to reveal Nina the second half of the film drags so there are definitive issue with the pacing of the film.In some instances the casting was also far from ideal. The actress who played Holly, Abigail Hardingham, was a very natural and engaging presence, hanging on in there with the relationship despite all of the bizarre difficulties because she wanted to appear "dark" and not "vanilla" and to be committed to her first real boyfriend (although in reality the actress is too pretty to have been "left on the shelf"). However Holly is given no back story and due to the underwriting of her character we become increasingly frustrated that the motivations of Holly become blurred in the second half of the film as her love for her rather dull boyfriend starts to become diluted.There are two serious problems with the film. The first is the casting of Fiona O'Shaugnessy as Nina herself. The character as written and acted is a highly un-haunting presence. Nina as portrayed in the film is lacking in charm, beauty or personality. Her mocking baby like voice is so irritating that you'd have probably been glad to see the back of her not be so haunted by her to the extent that you couldn't move on from her!! Not to be ungallant but Ms Shaughnessy is also much too old to be playing the fantasy girlfriend role – more suited to the bitter divorcée! -and this unbalances the whole film.The last half hour was a bit of a drag and the other serious problem, the "twist" ending of switching over the "curse of Nina " to Holly, was silly and felt tagged on. The Writer/Directors., the Blaine Brothers, should have had the conviction to retain faith in the subtext of people being unable to move on from a relationship.If we had a much sweeter and charming Nina and a more grown up conclusion ( perhaps along the lines of Morettoi/Grimaldi's "Quiet Chaos" ) in which eventually Nina disappeared because the main character was able to finally move on we would have had a poignant conclusion and a more consistent tone to add to the humour and interesting premises. Instead the filmmakers resorted to immature gimmicky that betrayed the original theme of the film.So maybe next time gentlemen make a film that has the conviction to respect people's intelligence rather than assuming film goers need juvenile sarcasm and a twist ending?

This Frightfest 2015 favourite is the first gem of 2016. A British indie written and directed by Ben and Chris Blaine, it's a jet-black sex comedy about a dead young woman who comes back to life whenever her ex-boyfriend has sex. And he's having a lot of sex with his new girlfriend, Holly (Abigail Hardingham).Avoiding potentially tiresome scenes of endless disbelief, the central couple accept the bizarre situation far more easily than their zombie. Indeed, Holly is actually turned on by the presence of Nina (Fiona O'Shaughnessy). The latter is in no mood for a ménage a trois, and proceeds to torment the new lovers. She's the embodiment of guilt.Nina Forever doesn't go for scares. But neither does it go for the surreal. The grounded way in which it depicts its essential weirdness is one of its main appeals. It's reminiscent of the deadpan exchanges between David and his dead buddy in An American Werewolf in London – that's the tone.Another key element is the characterisation. Holly and Rob (Cian Barry) are entirely convincing as the late-teenage lovers, swept up in their twisted, hermetically-sealed fantasy. And the Blaine brothers throw into the mix Nina's grieving parents, whose struggles to cope (dad's writing a terrible book; mum's trying to keep her daughter alive through Rob) are funny and moving.The Blaines' control of the material is seriously impressive. Everyone knows comedy-horror is a virtually impossible balancing act, but they mostly nail it, lightening the darkness of the material without ever taking the camp way out. It is horrific and it is funny, which is all you can ask. The balance is achieved through an unholy trinity of sex, death, and love. There's something here about faithfulness. If you never had a chance in life to stop loving someone, how do you have consent to love another? Real thought has been put into the script, creating a uniquely involving genre-evading experience. Its central romance is as carefully rendered as its gore. Nina doesn't just mean different things to different people; she means different things to the same people over the course of the story. She plays a key part in the ending, where quiet revelation awaits.And that's what this highly original film is: a quiet revelation.