It's October so you know it must be time for Horrorfest -- my attempt each year to watch 31 horror movies in the 31 days of October in celebration of spooky season in general and Halloween in particular. I try to watch movies I've never seen before, though I'll sometimes make exceptions. This year I'm going to try to catch up on some recent releases I never got around to, but I'll still be checking out some oldies, too.
Anyway, what's more recent than...
NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU
Written and Directed by Brian Duffield
Starring Kaitlyn Dever
USA, 2023
This almost-direct-to-streaming alien flick is only a couple weeks old, so it seemed like a good place to start. It tells the tale of an emotionally traumatized young woman (Kaitlyn Dever) who lives all on her own in a big house on the outskirts of a small town. Not only is she mourning the loss of her mother, but she is also still dealing with the aftermath of a mysterious tragedy that befell her childhood friend. We know enough to know our heroine was somehow involved and feels guilty about it, but that's about all we know before the aliens show up.
The movie and our heroine waste no time trying to figure out what's going on and both jump directly to assuming the aliens are evil, and go directly into survival mode, making short work of the first of many invaders. Are they evil? I dunno. I mean, they start possessing people in a body-snatcher-type-way, so, yeah, I guess, though we never really find out what they're up to or why. On one hand this is good, because I've had enough of movies that explain too much stuff. On the other this left the movie a little lacking because everything felt a little unmoored in an "anything goes" kind of way that makes it hard to invest in.
If you guessed that our heroine's childhood trauma will both be resolved and figure into the action prominently, you can pat yourself on the back, because it does. Sort of. Again, it's a little murky to try to figure out why stuff happens or what we're supposed to make of it. Check it out yourself, if you dare.
I should mention that the movie makes a unique choice in using almost no dialogue at all. Not really because of any in-movie reason -- it just starts out that our heroine is isolated most of the time, and then as it develops the screenplay contrives reasons why she, and everyone else, doesn't speak in moments other people would. Why does it do this? I'm not sure. To see if it can be done? I guess. Except of course for the fact that... it has been done. Many times.
I applaud the effort but have to admit they didn't really pull it off. The first signs of trouble were in the first few scenes of the film, which were supposed to be our heroine going about her daily routine. Unfortunately, she's directed to over-express herself like an early 20th century silent film actor, which draws attention to the "no talking" rule instead of making it seem organic. It's also not really necessary, considering audiences are sophisticated enough today to understand visual storytelling and don't need this kind of help.
Similarly, the sound design works overdrive putting every breath, gasp, sigh, etc. in the forefront so that we're sure to hear SOMEthing so we don't freak out and turn the movie off. But, again, this just draws attention to the gimmick instead of letting it play out naturally, and made the movie more about, "How are they going to contrive the next scene," as opposed to about its own story, characters and themes. And judging from the content of the rest of the movie, I do not think this is what it was meant to be about.
I checked to see what people are saying online to make sure I didn't miss anything, and I didn't. It seems like the majority of casual viewers appreciated the movie. For my part, it was okay, but nothing special, and needlessly confusing.
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