It’s amazing we can’t get more films like this… a great movie playing in a familiar sandbox. There are so many cheapo horror flicks with rinse and repeat ideas that accomplish nothing. This flick shows you can do it all over again, but better.
No One Will Save You stars Kaitlyn Dever as a woman living alone in the country when something from somewhere out there shows up one dark evening. It’s aliens… the kind you’ve seen before… only used creatively, as if in conversation with other films like it.
I don’t think Dever has one line of dialog in the whole film. She mutters words occasionally, but the film is all show, don’t tell. It’s a fantastic performance and if we weren’t convinced she’s something else, this film’s white-knuckle performance will get that across.
And, yeah, so much isn’t explained, it’s shown. From her past and mental state to the actual depiction of the invaders. This film has confidence in itself and its audience to tell a story visually without having to mollycoddle the viewer. I was continuously impressed by how it used clever moments to explain things… from hand-written letters, to side-ways glances, to a striking memorial that comes back later. More movies like this, please.
The film also looks fantastic. I can’t imagine it had a high budget but everything is shot with enthusiasm and confidence. Multiple overhead shots that slowly tell a story or tracking shots of Dever simply running. The CG effects are solid and the use of light continuously tells a story.
As far as the aliens go, you’ve seen them before. They are the Grays… and they are introduced in shadow and behind screens and it feels like maybe they were working on that limited budget. But no, that’s just suspense… we get the creatures in full and they are very creepy and well done. And, yeah, familiar to anyone who’s seen sci-fi movies or hokey alien abduction documentaries (except maybe their feet… those are weird). But I think the film is using visual shorthand to onboard us into the story. We know what’s coming… we’ve seen this one before.
And yet the way is uses theme and variation on the familiar tropes is impressive. What seemed familiar at first grows more interesting, weird, and unusual later. It kept me on edge, unsure where this film’s horror was going.
This film is in conversation with earlier movies. There’s heavy similarity to certain scenes in Close Encounters, including lighting and visual imagery borrowed directly from Spielberg. This is Close Encounters if things didn’t go so well. And it’s also referencing Signs… in fact, this flick might be the perfect movie for people who don’t like Signs. There’s a direct reference to pans of water that have to be a wink and a nod to Shyamalan’s effort (which I enjoyed as well).
The movie is also simply a lot of fun and scary and creepy and eerie all at the same time. There are rollicking moments where you want to cheer a particular move or groan when Dever’s character doesn’t do something smarter. This is good old fashioned fun with the only crime being it’s a Hulu release and not theatrical. It would have been a hell of a time with a reactive crowd.
And if the film has an ending that’s controversial, at least they had an idea. I’m not sure it totally works, but it sure had me thinking. I guess there could be multiple interpretations, but I liked the one I settled on. Though if it had found a more satisfying conclusion – and I’m not sure what that would have been – it might have put it into the pantheons of all time great scary flicks.
I was totally taken by surprise by this film. It’s such a nail-biter… such an actor’s film… so emblematic of how to respect the audience… such a gift to fans of sci-fi and alien invasion films. And an all around treasure for people who just love to be scared in a fun, adventurous way. An all around gift to film lovers.
Score: 92