Main cast: Kaitlyn Dever (Brynn Adams)
Director: Brian Duffield
In No One Will Save You, right off the bat it is clear that Brynn Adams’s life is… highly unusual.
She lives in this big house left to her by her late mother. She runs a seamstress business from home, taking orders online and mailing out her dresses to her clients. However, there is something not right here.
For one, the rest of the folks in Mill River actively and sometimes violently shun her. She stays at her home at all time, leaving only with great effort to deliver parcels to her clients. She hides from certain people, and the mailman even deliberately throws her parcels on the ground out of petty glee.
Still, her parents must be loaded, as the house is huge and Brynn has everything she can buy to lead a cozy solitary life. She even has a replica of the town set up in the living room. Too bad her life is also a very lonely one.
Then again, she will appreciate this solitude more when the aliens arrive. That’s right, as the rest of the townsfolk become infected by the aliens, she will have to do her best to be the final girl in this alien invasion movie…
Most people feel that Brynn saying only five or six words in the entire movie is a gimmick, but I feel that this is a believable extension of the trauma in her past, the one that also causes her to be ostracized by the rest of the townsfolk.
If anything, this allows Kaitlyn Dever to use her facial expressions and the occasional squeaks and screams to convey a gamut of emotions far better than words could. Interestingly enough, this works for both the scary and quirky moments in this movie.
Yes, this movie is one of those rare ones that balance quirky humor and genuine scares very well.
The aliens, for example, are both cute and terrifying to look at, as is their mode of communication, which sees them striking a pose that is simultaneously hilarious and creepy. These aliens all have telekinetic powers, which make them formidable foes. However, their behavior is child-like at times, as if they were inquisitive creatures that know not or care not the damage that they can do in indulging their curiosity.
This movie avoids cheap and lazy jump scares, hallelujah. Instead, it uses lighting and slow build up to create tension and scares. Furthermore, Brynn’s victories seem realistic as she doesn’t go from zero to superhero in abrupt and unbelievable ways. Sometimes she gets lucky, other times she’s plucky, so she’s a believable kick-ass protagonist.
The aliens have very different appearances, a fact that makes me wonder whether the true “aliens” are the spider-like things that leap down one’s mouth to completely take over the creature.
Still, this movie doesn’t offer any clear answers. If anything, the whimsical “twist” ending actually makes things even more muddled, heh.
Nonetheless, the movie is so much fun to watch that the lack of closure doesn’t matter much to me. If anything, the whole thing could have been a parable about how people can be so cold and ruthless that aliens may be better company, heh.
Anyway, folks that like movies that are both scary and quirky may want to take a look at this one. It’s a cute, one of a kind alien invasion movie that succeeds in transcending its gimmicks to be quite the home run.
