Synopsis:
Tales of beasts in love with beauties are as old as recorded history, spanning from the myth of Cupid and Psyche to The Hunchback of Notre Dame; from Hades and Persephone to The Elephant Man to King Kong. While Spike nods at the archetypal precedents, it twists and overturns genre conventions to explore previously untapped strata of the fairytale turned nightmare.
Spike is the monstrously mutated suitor who builds a forest lair in which he dwells for several years while awaiting the arrival of his “beauty” - a girl with whom he shares a history, and whom he has idolized his entire life.
The girl and a group of friends find themselves, by no coincidence, stranded in Spike’s forest. The Beast kidnaps his Beauty. Spike also injures her boyfriend and holds him hostage. Thus begins the girl’s quest to recover her ill-fated lover from Spike -- whether through reason, charm, coercion, or violence -- while her friends try to recover her.
Spike maneuvers through the dark tensions of a monster’s love and the depths to which a beauty may sink to evade it, arguably becoming monstrous herself. In the end, we must uncomfortably agree that, as Spike himself says, “There is always some madness in love.” Spike gives that madness life.

"Impressive, uniquely engaging gothic fairytale with unexpected turns." - Sean Decker, FANGORIA

"An assured and stylish mix of David Lynch and the brothers Grimm." - Callum Waddell, DREAMWATCH/TOTAL SCI-FI

"A gothic fairytale that delivers thrills and chills." - Claudia Andrei, MOVIESTAR MAGAZINE

"Moody, artful psychological horror -- draws on the fairytales of old to gel past and present bogey men with the understanding that they all prey on us because our demons insist on it." - John E. Mitchell, NORTH ADAMS TRANSCRIPT

"Subversive, sublime, moving. Spike’s earthy cultivation of a monster’s obsession with love’s dead bloom is a talon-sharp original!" - Robert Hope, EIFF

BEST OF THE FEST: EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
SELECTION: SHRIEKFEST (LOS ANGELES, OCTOBER 2009)

Cast:
Edward Gusts (Junction / The Blackout), Sarah Livingston Evans, Anna-Marie Wayne, Nancy P. Corbo (A Gothic Tale), Jared Edwards.

Crew:
Written & Directed by Robert Beaucage
Producers: Devin DiGonno, Erik Rodgers, Antoinette Peskoff
Directors of Photography: Matthew Boyd & Andrew Parke
Production Designer: Dan Whifler
Editor: Eric N. Grush
Costume Designer: Rachel Ford
Creature Creator: Jordu Schell
Music: Eric Santiestevan

Thriller/Horror | Super 16mm | 90 minutes | 2008 | USA
Available on Digital Beta and HDCam.