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In a universe full of mysteries we can never fully comprehend, something is bound to crash into our world that does not belong here. Countless stories focus on the clashes with individual alien lifeforms, but what if an entire ecology invades ours? In order to birth a new alien world, it would have to destroy ours first.
Alex Garland’s Annihilation (a loose, dream-like adaptation of Jeff Vandermeer’s novel) showcases this scenario. A meteor strikes a lighthouse somewhere in the deep south, causing an alien field to constantly expand and swallow the surrounding countryside. Few teams were sent into the Shimmer—a man named Kane came out (Oscar Isaac). His wife Lena (Natalie Portman) finds that he’s nothing like his former self. When the government snags the two of them into Area X, Lena finds out about the Shimmer and volunteers for a new mission to explore it where others failed. What follows is an eerie journey into an uncanny landscape teeming with mutating life. The further the team travels, the more they change too.
Despite the swiftness of the plot and the depth of its story, I questioned the fast and loose way it slaps certain pieces together to form a plot. Characters can be frustrating to watch, especially in one scene that mirrors the blood-test scene in 1982’s The Thing. However, it’s hard to fault the film intentionally set up as a hazy dream where characters aren’t themselves and can’t make rational decisions.
To emphasize the Shimmer’s irrationality, the film masters the uncanny. Most horror films begin and end with one simple thing out of place in the world—a monster perhaps, a killer, or spirits. With Annihilation, we witness an entire environment out of whack, offering sights that are both beautiful and unsettling. The photography is very simple, but the SFX and visual filters bring the Shimmer’s wonders and terrors to vivid life. Sharp editing, crisp sound design, and an otherworldly music score makes the experience even punchier. The cast delivers solid performances full of gravitas. The script is understated, to the point of leaving ambiguity and many unanswered questions in its wake. That might frustrate many audiences, but it’s also the thing that keeps some folks coming back for more.
What really pushes this film over-the-top for me is its finale. Hardly a traditional climax, the characters reach a literal “heart of darkness” to behold a bizarre, unknowable phenomenon that no other sci-fi film can hope to match. What follows is not a battle or fight, but more of a “dance” that emphasizes performance art over action.
To some, this might be a simple “there and back again” plot that mirrors Tarkovsky’s Stalker. But with frequent visual motifs and dialogue, there are hints at additional layers. In one respect, the film becomes an allegory for the inner struggle of a person’s psyche—facing not an extraterrestrial, but a dark, unknowable side of oneself that could change the soul from the inside. The film astutely claims that everybody self-destructs thanks to unknowable dark impulses. Every character in the film expresses these impulses, leading to fates that come in full circle.
By sci-fi standards, the film succeeds in invoking thought and discussion over what an intruding alien will would really mean for us. By horror standards, the film represents an updated and terrifying take on cosmic horror tropes. It’s a world full of abominations and entities we can never possibly comprehend, and by merely existing it could wipe out mankind without a care. This is the stuff that crept under my skin all year long and kept me awake at night with visions of Giger-esque chambers, fluxing clouds of light, vicious ManBearPig-things, and people breaking down into their smallest pieces. Chances are I’ll never be the same after seeing this film.
5/5
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