Horror comedySpontaneous is unusually sweet for a movie about spontaneous human combustion. Written and directed by Brian Duffield in his directorial debut, it stars Katherine Langford as Mara, a sardonic senior who's at school one day when her classmate randomly explodes in front of her. What appears to be a freak accident soon looks to be something worse when more and more students start popping like zits, spraying their innards over horrified onlookers.
The only thing tying these victims together is that they're all seniors, students in their last year of high school. This fact hasn't escaped Mara, who has since fallen for fellow senior Dylan (Charlie Plummer), a sweet-natured boy who takes his shot with her amidst the chaos. When she isn't fearing her imminent grisly death, Mara splits her time between Dylan and best friend Tess (Hayley Law), who just wants to grow old enough to see their childhood dream through: to retire to the beach like the "baller old chicks in kimonos" they idolized as kids.
The three characters deal with the so-called "Poppings" in different ways. Mara and Dylan cope with crude humor, making jokes about the deceased amongst their usual "your mom" jabs, whereas Tess takes things more seriously, planning to graduate and leave their town, which news reporters claim is cursed.
As death rates increase, the surviving students of Covington High are put into quarantine whilst the government officials frantically try to find a cure. This sequence harks back to the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and though the whole movie could be seen as an allegory for the pandemic, the Aaron Starmer novel it's based on came out in 2014. Still, the themes ring true to an audience that has lived through such an event. Post-quarantine, Mara is more sarcastic than ever, but her usual coping mechanisms begin to falter when tragedy strikes close to home. Having come into close contact with death, she starts acting out and becomes uncharacteristically depressed. Grieving, she turns to drink and drugs and pushes her friends and family away. Life for her has become pointless, and death has never felt so probable.
Despite these depressing turn of events, however, Spontaneous is hardly bleak. Funny moments await every turn — from Mara crashing a Covington Curse protest to her drunkenly trashing an FBI agent's car — and witty one-liners are aplenty. Standout quips come from Mara herself and include, "It could be worse, right, we could be Republicans," and "She’s pretty professional, for a b***h."
Certainly, lead actress Katherine Langford is the best part of the movie. Her comedic skills are impressive and perhaps surprising for viewers who have only seen her in the popular teen series 13 Reasons Why. Langford harnesses Hannah's teen angst in Spontaneous, but shows she can do silly too. Her co-star Plummer is also a good casting choice as her awkward, endearing boyfriend, Dylan. Plummer plays a similar character in the critically acclaimed TV series Looking for Alaska and the movie Words on Bathroom Walls, which also sees him as a high school senior with a host of other problems.
Langford and Plummer have undeniable chemistry in Spontaneous, which is essential to the romantic subplot. What's more, there is also platonic chemistry between Langford and Law, who plays Mara's bestie, Tess. When Mara has lost all hope, Tess reminds her what there is to live for, as another character supports Mara with her grief. These kinds of heartwarming interactions form the crux of the movie. It may be a horror comedy, with just as many gruesome scenes as funny ones, but it is also a backwards coming-of-age movie about friendship, love, life, and death.
Spontaneous celebrates life and the small moments worth living for, such as dancing to Bon Jovi in an old barn or smoking a hookah with your best friend. It applies the motto "you only live once" to a horror scenario and forces viewers to face their mortality in the most brilliant, explosively fun way. And it still succeeds as a horror — the film is genuinely frightening, not least because the mystery behind the Poppings is never divulged.
Like the Big Bang or sinkholes — both examples Mara uses in her closing monologue — the Poppings seemingly happened just because. And whilst some viewers weren't satisfied with this explanation (or lack thereof), it makes sense that Sponatenous chose to go this root. Not only is it in the name, but those looking for answers are missing the point of the story: there is none. Life doesn't make sense. But instead of letting that scare you, Spontaneous tells viewers to let that propel them, in a speech by Mara that contains far too many expletives to repeat.