Time Travel! Alternate Dimensions! Sex! Murder! Wardrobes! These are the elements of Yannis Veslemes’ psychologically Lovecraftian mind-bender She Loved Blossoms More. A pure late-night slice of madness like Tilman Singer’s Luz (2018) or Ben Wheatley’s In The Earth (2021), She Loved Blossoms More lives on a plane of existence where logic is elusive. A movie that’s best enjoyed late, late at night. It lives in those moments just before falling asleep where reality is slowly peeled away to reveal an ethereal otherworld that can be molded like a piece of clay into any hideous shape you desire.
Using an antique wardrobe as a conduit for their experiments, three brothers attempt to bring their mother back from the dead. Or, at the very least, bring her to their present from a time in her past when she was still alive. The experiments have not been going well but they know they are on the verge of a breakthrough. In classic mad scientist fashion, their attempts have led to some pretty horrific results with their test subjects. Including the grotesque death of an adorable piglet. RIP little piggy. But after a dangerous test trial, the boys make a discovery that set off a chain of events that get wild ‘n’ weird, and hauntingly surreal.
“Lovecraftian madness and nightmare monsters.”
She Loved Blossoms More has an evolving story structure. The film starts as hard science (as hard science as something like a time-traveling wardrobe can be) but slowly shapeshifts into fringe science and voodoo. As the brothers get closer to touching the void and making contact, their grip on reality becomes more tenuous. By the end, the movie exists in pure nightmare logic, transforming their family home into something more akin to “The Zone” in Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979). Even from the start, the underlying truth of this world feels just out of reach but it’s gone gone gone by the finale.
Fans of slow-burn, sleepy midnight madness will especially appreciate the tone of She Loved Blossoms More. The film strikes a good balance between ethereal, feel-it-in-your-gut storytelling without getting too lost in its own vibe to forget about dialog and character building. It doesn’t serve everything to you on a silver platter but it also isn’t as impenetrable as some modern arthouse can be. It’s more Indica than Sativa, more dreamland than bedtime story, more aesthetic than exposition.
“A pure late-night slice of insanity […that] has the pulse of a Peter Strickland or a Panos Cosmatos flick“
She Loved Blossoms More is a meditation on grief and loss, but it’s also crazy weird. It’s got trippy nightmare monsters, a chicken with an interdimensional portal instead of a head (no joke),spooky voodoo spirits, and a girl whose head is bisected like a psychedelic Salvador Dali sculpture. I can’t honestly say that I understood every second of it on my first watch but it has the pulse of a Peter Strickland or a Panos Cosmatos fl[ick, and I’m always grateful for nightmare logic & time-travel weirdness. Forget everything you read about lions and witches and centaurs growing up. In this wardrobe, there be Lovecraftian madness and nightmare monsters.
Yannis Veslemes’ She Loved Blossoms More celebrated its Texas Premiere at Fantastic Fest 2024. Click HERE to follow our continued coverage of the festival and share all your favorite trippy Sci-Fi Horror faves with us in the official Nightmare on Film Street Discord!
