Rating: NR | Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: February 13th, 2025 (Greece) / October 3rd, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Dark Sky Films
Director(s): Yannis Veslemes
Writer(s): Yannis Veslemes & Dimitris Emmanouilidis

I don’t feel so sorry for you.

Logo (Dominique Pinon) left his three sons in Athens with a single task: bring their mother back from the dead. Hedgehog’s (Panos Papadopoulos) ambition, Japan’s (Aris Balis) tech savvy, and Dummy’s (Julio Katsis) naive optimism might just get it done too. By tweaking their father’s time machine prototype, they’ve discovered a way to tap into an alternate reality. And logic poses that their ability to send organic material through their retrofitted armoire means they should also be able to bring something else back.

So, when their latest attempt results in the mangled living corpse of a pig they sent to what can only be labeled as Hell, their disgust towards its horror is trumped by the reality that the science worked. Because the readings say it wasn’t just cooked and flayed. It actually left their plane of existence. The fact the closet wasn’t empty upon opening the doors therefore invigorates their drive to succeed—especially with their father’s arbitrary deadline looming. Now’s not the moment to stop. It’s time to take the training wheels off.

As director Yannis Veslemes and co-writer Dimitris Emmanouilidis zoom out from the mad science, however, She Loved Blossoms More exposes the possibility that what we’re watching is nothing more than a drug-addled, hallucinatory trip. If they aren’t raiding the alcohol in the cellar, they’re partaking in whatever pills Dummy’s girlfriend/dealer Samantha (Sandra Abuelghanam) supplies. So, is their progress a shared delusion? Are they really talking to vagina flowers and chasing headless chickens? Is their house just a prison of the mind?

If I’m being honest: I haven’t a clue. But I also don’t believe having one is the filmmakers’ intent. This is a surreal experience that seeks to strip mankind down to its basest emotions. Stubbornness, pragmatism, and innocence banding together to overcome a grief they’ve been unable to conquer in their own messed up ways (Dummy sleeps with his hands tied to the wheel of the car their mother died in). They avoid the pain, channel their desire into their work, and ultimately risk losing their own sanity in the process.

Don’t therefore worry about the time skips or the blurring between real life and dream states. Don’t even worry about the bisected face with a bedazzled interior housing a third eye that won’t stop spouting nonsense as its body remains in whatever realm they maliciously sent it. Maybe worry about Logo showing up to prematurely hijack Hedgehog’s progress since his exploitation of his sons’ inebriated states inevitably ratchets up the potential for apocalyptic destruction, but also just enjoy the life-size puppet of Pinon that arrives.

Acid trips meet orgies. Severed limbs meet implausibly synthetic portals maintaining their life. The phone won’t stop ringing. Samantha won’t stop having sex with the brothers. And Mom (Alexia Kaltsiki) won’t stop communicating with them to push their limits and morality so she can be freed from her garden grave. Is that what the boys want to do? Is it what their father is forcing them to do? Could they move on if given the room to face their sorrow with sober heads stripped of a ticking clock towards a deadline that isn’t real?

The ending provides a sort of Wizard of Oz awakening wherein what we’ve seen is an amalgam of sensory input while frying their brains, but how can you believe that if you cannot believe anything else? The weirdness is therefore the point. You either embrace it or reject it. Those hoping for a coherent plot should turn back now. Those partaking in their own substances before sitting down should brace for getting more than they might be able to absorb. Those who saw “Greek comedy/sci-fi/horror” and licked their lips will be in Heaven.

I was left with a sense of respect for the bold insanity if not actual enjoyment. The pacing can crawl and the obtuseness can frustrate, but you must appreciate the actors going all-in and the impressive special effects (the headless chicken and opened head are impossible to forget). But that membrane of style does cause you to question whether any substance exists inside (to borrow a Logo metaphor). The end feels very David Lynch-coded in its Black Lodge and “This is the girl” flair, but mainly via aesthetic. None of it ever gave me the chills.

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Panos Papadopoulos in SHE LOVED BLOSSOMS MORE; courtesy of Dark Sky Films.