Boy, this is the latest I have ever finished Blogtober. Fortunately I picked a pretty memorable movie for the last entry–and one I don’t have much to say about! But what I do have to say is mostly positive. Brian Duffield’s saucer invasion thriller is a lot of fun, even if it never fully develops its thesis. Kaitlyn Dever plays a young woman who has been mysteriously ostracized from her rural community, and so she lives out a fantasy of rustic contentment on the outskirts of town. Her peaceful solitude is marred by her nagging grief over a past catastrophe that is never fully articulated, because NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU commits to the gimmick of dialog-free storytelling. This might be sort of annoying–and it definitely doesn’t do the left-field ending any favors–but this movie is less about story than spectacle, and sometimes that is just fine.
The polymorphic gray aliens that descend on the heroine’s home look great, and the action is legitimately scary and exciting. Actually, I put this movie on one night during a bout of insomnia, thinking it would be a breezy timekiller, and then I found the initial invasion scene so scary I wondered if I’d made a big mistake! But the thing that impressed me more than anything else in NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU is the set design (by Jaime Salazar if I’m not mistaken). I’d hazard to guess that most people think about set design more in terms of appearance than functionality, but the handsome, naturalistic farmhouse in which most of the movie unspools furnishes seemingly endless opportunities for wonderfully surprising chases and fight scenes. Every nook and cranny of the place becomes a hiding place, a shortcut, a booby trap; each cute, collectible tchotchke becomes a crucial tool or a brutal weapon. While I was watching this movie, I became intensely aware that it takes a special kind of genius to figure out the right architecture to enable the fast-paced, complicated action that makes up most of NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU. I enjoyed this aspect of the film so much that I didn’t wind up worrying about the hokey silent movie gimmick, or the fact that the underlying trauma-drama was only half-baked, or that the gonzo ending didn’t quite make any sense. Sometimes when you insist on perfection, you deprive yourself of some pleasure that is abundantly available between the flaws–and I think that’s a pretty good message to leave you with at the conclusion of this speed run season for Blogtober. Thanks for sticking with it! See you in 2024 (or as soon as I have another urgent judgment to hand down).
Nerding out over the various generations of Star Trek media in the rec room. Was watching an episode on DVD and realized how much I prefer the pre-digital, pre-remastered, original broadcasts. Frankly, the Selectavision release looks the best. Also: the cartridge art!
I didn’t want her to answer any more questions. I like it when people tell me the truth, but it always makes me feel bad, too. I tried to say I was sorry, but I couldn’t even open my mouth.
I didn’t want her to answer any more questions. I like it when people tell me the truth, but it always makes me feel bad, too. I tried to say I was sorry, but I couldn’t even open my mouth.
The world has found me out. It has discovered my burrow beneath the tool shed, the half-finished lifeboat cannibalized from the viscera of dead helicopters. The world is busy destroying my means of escape. Then it will come back for me.
The world has found me out. It has discovered my burrow beneath the tool shed, the half-finished lifeboat cannibalized from the viscera of dead helicopters. The world is busy destroying my means of escape. Then it will come back for me.
