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Reed Alexander's Review of '+1' (2013)

Sex with Your X's Doppelgänger

By Reed AlexanderPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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SPOILERS!!!

You know it's going to be bad when I basically have to start off with the spoiler alert. So yeah, I am basically encouraging you to never watch this! If you feel like you absolutely must know what happens, continue reading, cause I'm about to detail everything wrong with it in a play by play.

Meteor crashes. At least they had the decency to hang a lantern on how awful the movie is going to be. A meteor crashing used to be the mark of good horror but its been so overdone it's now the mark of ridiculous camp. Nowadays, if the first thing to happen in a horror movie is a meteor crashing, I can usually say, "Oh, good! That sets the tone. This is clearly going to be silly as fuck." There are rare exceptions like The Invasion where they manage to pull it off and still stay serious. But c'mon... the original Night of the Living Dead starts with a news cast about a what they think is a deadly meteor crash. The meteor thing has been permanently played out for anything but camp from then on. This movie would have been okay if it just took that moment and said "Fuck it, lets have fun..." but they don't. That meteor impact is deadly serious, and with it goes any chance of redemption for this movie. Sooooo basically it opens up with the biggest reason to stop watching it. But hey, I watched it so you don't have to, and I'm never getting those 90 minutes of my life back.

You know what the real horror story is here? The fact that the main character cheats on his girlfriend, botches the make-up, uses what he knows about his botched make-up to manipulate his girlfriend's doppelgänger, then murders his actual girlfriend so he can replace her with the doppelgänger... not okay. And he gets away with that shit too! That! That right fucking there! There's your fucking horror story! "Hey honey, I'm so obsessed that I can't let you move on in your life, so I'm willing to kill you and replace you with a clone I manipulated..." That is some Stepford Wives shit right there. That's the real horror... only they play it off like it's some romantic comeback. Comeback? Bitch, he didn't realize the error of his ways and fix shit with his real girlfriend, HE KILLED HER AND REPLACED HER WITH A MANIPULATED COPY! That is some fucked up shit, Son. That's no happy ending, THAT'S REAL FUCKING HORROR. The sad fact is that the director had a real horror movie right there and tried to make it a romance is not just pathetic, but it's also a little telling about what the director thinks about women and relationships.

It's not even believable. The guy goes to his girlfriend's fencing meet and makes out with the chick that beat her, without even attempting to hide it. Clearly, at least some portion of him isn't all that interested in his relationship with her. And I mean, how fucking attached are you if you can just shove a knife in your girlfriend's gut, or are capable of replacing her with the equivalent of a bodysnatcher? Hell, they even bring this up in the movie and never bother to answer that question. That's not romance. That's sappy teen drama at best. Either way, that relationship will last... what... one semester of college and then what? He has to kill her all over again? Not the guy I'd want to be dating personally.

What's really disappointing is that there's a real story here that the director or the writers completely passed up. Basically, the meteor creates some sort of strange time rift and everyone at a party ends up getting duplicated by people identical to them in every way except they're about fifteen minutes from the past. Of course, the party goers panic and start killing their twins. Now there at least is an interesting horror story!!! That shit would be amazing! So, you find out there's nothing evil about the doppelgängers, but of course their originals panic and start killing them. Now you're expecting this to come back and bite them right on the ass, naturally. Like maybe interacting with a doppelgänger messes with the time stream, or causes some sort of flux. But nothing happens... with no repercussions... what so ever. Yeah I get it, it's a real traumatic life changing experience to have to kill yourself, but you know what would have made it horror? If killing yourself from 15 minutes in the past meant you eventually assumed the life ending wound you dealt on yourself. I mean, that's what they were going for, right? The girlfriend that hates the main character is replaced by the one he manipulated. So what about the girl that clawed her doppelgänger's eyes out? It'd be great if she suddenly grew claw marks across her eyes. But there's no real consequence, so what's the real horror? Everything just goes back to normal, poof. THAT SHIT IS FUCKING LAME!

But no, creepy murdering guy gets the girlfriend of his dreams, everyone else goes back to normal... Seriously, what the fuck was the point of watching this crap? DON'T DO IT!

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About the Creator

Reed Alexander

I'm a horror author and foulmouthed critic of all things horror. New reviews posted every Monday.

@ReedsHorror on TikTok, Threads, Instagram, YouTube, and Mastodon.

Check out my books on Godless: https://godless.com/products/reed-alexander

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