Love Potion (film)

Love Potion is a 2005 science fiction comedy-drama film written and directed by Jason Evans in his directorial debut and produced by Stephen Williams and Brian Grazer. It stars Lewis Green as Dr. Timothy Gauntler, a recent Oxford University grad who wants to improve his love life. He does so by creating a "love potion" in order to attract girls, but after distributing the potion worldwide via Pfizer, an apocalypse arrives, resulting in an alien invasion.

The film was first released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 25 May 2005 and on 9 June 2006 in the United States, it received positive reviews from critics who praised its humour, acting, script and pacing.

Plot
After graduating Oxford University with a degree in biology, scientist Dr. Timothy Gauntler plans to get back onto his love life. Having been a virgin since he was seven years old, he plans to create a potion that will allow him to get any girl he wants. Gauntler gets help from an old friend of his, David, who is dating a girl named Diana. David and Gauntler devise a potion that stimulates the hormones in the organs and makes an instant reaction for sex. Three weeks later, the potion is given a test run on a female client. The potion works as the client tries to rape a fellow scientist, causing the others to knock her out. Gauntler, astatic that the potion works, plans to sell both the potion and the formula to biotechnology corporation Pfizer. After a few more tests, the potion, coined the “love potion” is prepared for distribution.

Gauntler warns Andrew, a mentally challenged scientist, not to sell the love potion to strangers as it could start a worldwide apocalypse. Andrew doesn’t listen and gives the potion to his stubborn brother Michael, a closeted homosexual. Michael makes his crush Peter drink the love potion, causing him to have sex with Michael, much to his pleasure. Following the incident, the love potion begins to gain traction as Andrew keeps stealing bottles of the potion to sell to people. Within a month, Andrew is millionaire. Gauntler finds out and fires Andrew, despite his offer of £100,000. David tells Gauntler that the apocalypse, known to him and Gauntler as the “apocalypse of love”, has just begun, forcing them and a few more scientists to hide inside of a small shed. After spotting that the sky has turned an ominous pink colour, David determines that the apocalypse of love has been confirmed to have started.

Across towns in England, hundreds of people start impulsively attempting to rape people. The uninfected are told to lock all people who have taken the love potion away into a room temporarily until the potion dies down. In Scotland, many people flee to the Outer Hebrides to escape naked relatives. Gauntler, thinking that the apocalypse was his fault, goes on a rant about how people are unfair and how he wishes he’d never made the love potion. His rant attracts the infected, causing the scientists to leave the shed. The infected, called “lovers”, are emotionally unstable, a warning that David blames on Gauntler because he never put a warning label on the bottle. They steal a car and Gauntler, out of impulse, uses it to flatten the lovers. One scientist, Gregory, believes that the death will cause the lovers to start attacking them, zombie-like.

The scientists decide to flee Oxfordshire and escape to Ireland, where the love potion isn’t concurrently available. Finding out that it is a four hour drive, they go ahead with it, flattening lovers on the way. Four hours later, they arrive at Anglesey in Wales. Gauntler accidently crashes the car, causing it to explode. They find a local Irish Ferries company operating at Holyhead and book an enroute trip to Dublin. The company shut shop just as some lovers fail to get onboard. On the ferry, people are panicking over the apocalypse whilst an announcement is made reassuring people that the army will deal with the lovers. Gauntler heads to the toilet to escape the mayhem but is met with a male lover who attempts to sexually harass him, but he resists causing it to reveal its true self.

The lover claims that human beings have caused distress on other planets, making aliens target Earth. After that, the lover summons “the above”, a large crowd of UFOs that enter the Irish Sea unannounced. Gauntler escapes to the balcony and sees a large hole in the sky, thunder and lightning present as the MV Ulysses, the ferry everyone is travelling on, becomes the sole target. The lover returns as Gauntler knocks him out, causing a distressing amount of shaking from the boat. Crew members arm themselves as the first psychical battle between humans and aliens begins. Gauntler and David head to the front of the ferry to warn the helmsman but find that he has been killed. Annoyed, Gauntler takes control of the boat, in hopes of reaching Ireland any time soon. David grabs a gun and begins to shoot onboard lovers, who sneaked on by secretly climbing on the ferry.

After hours of fighting, the ferry reaches Dublin Port, where the battle moves to ground and continues, dubbed the “Battle of Dublin”. The chaos results in the Irish Army being called in, led by Lieutenant General Reece Caffrey. Gauntler leaves the MV Ulysses amidst the battle to meet with Caffrey, who tells him that the aliens came from the sky and seem to want to conquer the earth. After a lengthy chat, a hoard of lovers appear and ambush the meeting, causing the men to flee. Dublin becomes a battleground as people flee from the army and the aliens, who use their UFOs to cause mass destruction to buildings. Gauntler and David grab some guns from the floor and kill some aliens. One lover gets a heart attack and dies, resulting in other lovers dying. The aliens are soon wiped from existence as the army get the upper hand on them, with helicopters and tanks being called in

In the aftermath of the Battle of Dublin, Dublin is in ruins. The Irish government blame Gauntler for the incident and intent to deport him back to Wales where the lovers have been waiting, however they forgive him when Gauntler threatens legal action against them. Gauntler, now in debt, plans to sell the alien body parts on the Irish black market before leaving in a black car.