Movie Review: ‘No One Will Save You’

Director: Brian Duffield

Cast: Kaitlyn Dever, Zack Duhame, Lauren L. Murray, Geraldine Singer, Dane Rhodes, Daniel Rigamer

Plot: Brynn is a young woman living in a small rural town. Due to some past incident the people of the town shun Brynn, leaving her isolated and alone when UFO activity targets the community.

Review: Having gone into this movie knowing nothing, it wasn’t until quite late that we noticed that No One Will Save You is essentially a silent movie. This speaks to the movie’s solid visual storytelling, that never felt as though some aspect of the experience was missing. They don’t do anything to draw attention to this fact, ala A Quiet Place, instead it’s a matter of day-to-day routine for Brynn (Dever). Avoiding the accusing stares and hostile attitudes of the locals leaves Bryn living in a very quiet world – building models and practising dance moves with no-one to share it with. This is all the more surprising given that writer/director Duffield scripted the all-to-eager to impress dialogue of The Babysitter movies. Perhaps he’d burnt out his dialogue in those influencer driven comedies and wrote a movie without a word (kinda).

There’s a fun tone to this movie, although this is far from a comedy. It feels like an off-beat episode of The X-Files where Anderson and Duchovny were given the week off. We had a big run of UFO-centric media in the 90s, mostly off the back of the previously mentioned TV sensation. Putting your classic ‘Greys’ alien design in a modern style for unsettling results and there’s a couple of good horror examples from the decade (Fire in the Sky capturing the terrifying potential of the experience better than most). Movies like Signs and 10 Cloverfield Lane have dipped their toes in the idea to mixed results, so this feels like a breath of fresh air despite the retro designs.

Themes of isolation come to the fore when Brynn’s home is invaded by one of the greys towards the beginning of the movie. It seems like they’re going to keep things under wraps at first, with the chirping nasty being obscured behind frosted glass or outside of a door. There’s some subversions when we not only see the creature out in the open but Brynn manages to kill it. With no-one to turn to and a Body Snatchers situation unfolding around her, Brynn prepares to make a final stand. During the confrontations involving the advanced technology of the alien race force Brynn to revisit the event that lead to her estrangement from the town.

With the individual parts of this movie being so strong, it’s hard to put your finger on what stops this from coming together at the end. The escalation of events in the second half of the movie makes each scene feel like an isolated moment stacked on the previous rather than flowing out of it. The last act in particular has a stop-start feel to it. The ambiguity of the finale works in the movie’s favour, as we’ve only been privy to a narrow viewpoint throughout the story to this point. It’s a fun genre outing, but it’s not attempting to rewrite the book.

Rating: SEVEN out of TEN