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The film opens with a fiery, asteroid-like body striking a lighthouse somewhere on the Gulf Coast, leaving not destruction and calamity in its wake, only a prismatic, oily aura. (Right then and there, Annihilation announces itself as less of an explosion movie and more of an unexplainably unsettling oily aura movie.)
- Vulture review
Five female scientists venture into the weird bubble; only one returns. What's inside is both beautiful and horrific; they and everything inside are changed in beautiful and horrifying ways.
"Take a dangerous trip into an unknown place surrounded by mystery, from which few or none have ever returned" is one of my favorite tropes. Over-explaining is the death of it. Frederik Pohl's Gateway, in which people set out in abandoned alien spaceships for unknown destinations, hoping to get rich but mostly dying or never coming back, was throughly satisfying because it explored the mystery without ever solving it. The sequels explained everything and were terrible. Annihilation, very satisfyingly, delves into the mystery without dissipating it.
I think today is the last day it's in theaters in the US. I saw it last night because it sounded like the sort of movie you should see on the big screen if you want to see it, and that was a good choice. I hadn't intended to see it as I didn't like the preview and thought it was more of a standard horror movie than it is; consequently, I read a lot of spoilers that then convinced me to see it. Knowing a lot of what happened didn't ruin it for me, nor did it really prepare me, as it's not so much about what happens as how it happens and what it's like to watch it unfold.
Annihilation is a science fiction/horror movie loosely based on a book series I haven't read because it's by Jeff Vandermeer, whose prose style bugs me. Apparently the director, Alex Garland, read the first book and then made the movie years later without re-reading it, based on his recollections. Based on seeing the movie, this sounds extremely plausible. I don't mean that as an insult. It feels like a dream recalled.
If you're trying to decide if you want to see it based on how scary/gross it is, it has some very scary moments, some very gory moments, a lot of body horror and disturbing imagery, and implications ranging from unsettling to nightmarish. It does not have jump scares. It also has a lot of very beautiful imagery (much of it also unsettling/creepy) and a lot of sense of wonder. It's mostly slow and meditative and about exploring a strange new world.
( Read more... )
- Vulture review
Five female scientists venture into the weird bubble; only one returns. What's inside is both beautiful and horrific; they and everything inside are changed in beautiful and horrifying ways.
"Take a dangerous trip into an unknown place surrounded by mystery, from which few or none have ever returned" is one of my favorite tropes. Over-explaining is the death of it. Frederik Pohl's Gateway, in which people set out in abandoned alien spaceships for unknown destinations, hoping to get rich but mostly dying or never coming back, was throughly satisfying because it explored the mystery without ever solving it. The sequels explained everything and were terrible. Annihilation, very satisfyingly, delves into the mystery without dissipating it.
I think today is the last day it's in theaters in the US. I saw it last night because it sounded like the sort of movie you should see on the big screen if you want to see it, and that was a good choice. I hadn't intended to see it as I didn't like the preview and thought it was more of a standard horror movie than it is; consequently, I read a lot of spoilers that then convinced me to see it. Knowing a lot of what happened didn't ruin it for me, nor did it really prepare me, as it's not so much about what happens as how it happens and what it's like to watch it unfold.
Annihilation is a science fiction/horror movie loosely based on a book series I haven't read because it's by Jeff Vandermeer, whose prose style bugs me. Apparently the director, Alex Garland, read the first book and then made the movie years later without re-reading it, based on his recollections. Based on seeing the movie, this sounds extremely plausible. I don't mean that as an insult. It feels like a dream recalled.
If you're trying to decide if you want to see it based on how scary/gross it is, it has some very scary moments, some very gory moments, a lot of body horror and disturbing imagery, and implications ranging from unsettling to nightmarish. It does not have jump scares. It also has a lot of very beautiful imagery (much of it also unsettling/creepy) and a lot of sense of wonder. It's mostly slow and meditative and about exploring a strange new world.
( Read more... )
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