No One Will Save You: A Failed Blend of Horrifying Elements

"No One Will Save You" is a sci-fi thriller directed by Brian Duffield and starring Kaitlyn Dever. It is recently available on Hulu as its original movie. The film follows a young girl who accidentally kills her best friend, leading to her exile from the townspeople. Choosing to live in isolation, she confronts an alien invasion that mentally controls the entire town and bravely fights back alone.

Opinions are divided regarding the story. Some viewers find it nothing but a simple film talking about a troubled girl finding peace and healing thanks to the aliens. However, others believe that it goes beyond that and carries a deeper meaning. This is because, at the end of the film, the girl manages to resist being mentally implanted by the aliens, yet she still chooses to live in a virtual utopia that has been completely manipulated by them, one where everyone has been turned into puppets. And this raises an age-old question that is always worth discussing: should a person choose a real but painful world, or a false but beautiful one?

To be honest, the first time I watched it, I fell into the first group. Later I found out that there was another way to interpret this story, but I just nodded thinking it was interesting. Soon after, I came across a comment, "After hearing this interpretation, I changed my rating from two stars to one star." I couldn't help but laugh, haha. It's quite harsh, but I do understand the reason behind it. If the first interpretation is more accurate, then the story and its final presentation are at least consistent - simple, although lacking in originality. But if the second interpretation reflects more of the creator's true intention, then it's unfortunate - it becomes a tragedy of mismatch between the director's intention and ability, as he could not handle the script well.

I will try to present my reasons from the following two perspectives.

Psychological Thriller

The story of "No One Will Save You" is clearly more inclined towards a subgenre of thriller movies: psychological thriller. However, the director did not present it in a suitable way, like those excellent thrillers do - first establishing external pressures and then focusing on how the protagonist deals with and eventually overcomes the mental anguish they have been enduring. Generally speaking, if a psychological thriller film also involves extraterrestrial elements, they would be made into a high-pressure atmosphere or environmental backdrop. The aliens do not have to make their appearance ; they can be more implicit and elicit imagination so that the audience's attention will be focused on the protagonist's psychology. To be more specific, the aliens are not like the main characters in "E.T." who directly interact with the human protagonist, but more like the functional Big Other (Jacques Lacan) in "Contact", "2001: A Space Odyssey", and "Arrival". In this case, they should not dominate the narrative and may not even need to take physical form.

However, the director, in the middle of the film, indiscriminately introduced a series of bizarre aliens, causing a stylistic disconnect between the middle section and the beginning and end of the film (both of which focus on depicting the mental anguish of the protaganist). The girl's battle against the aliens becomes nothing more than a spectacle of curiosity, filled with cheap jump scares and unintelligent fights. The first alien, after playing a few tricks on the girl, is swiftly killed with one hit; the second one gets scalded with several pots of boiling water in the kitchen and dies shamefully in pain; the third one, like a ridiculous spider demon, is ultimately locked in a car and set on fire. It's too agonizing, and this is one of the reasons why, despite the film being only 90 minutes long, I still find it unnecessarily lengthy.

Cult Film

If the director wants to deviate from the conventional psychological thriller genre and toy with various thrilling elements that he personally enjoys, there is a more feasible way - transforming it into a cult film, which aligns with the somewhat unconventional and lighthearted, albeit not well-thought-out story. The outrageous and ridiculously awkward viewing experience caused by the girl's battle against aliens in the film leads me to believe that it possesses qualities that can be associated with a cult film. However, the key point here is that the essence of a cult film lies in the innovation of bizarre images and concepts, rather than a mere imitation of what came before. "No One Will Save You"'s most outstanding impression for its viewers actually comes from its incorporation of elements from the most classic alien and thriller movies.

For example, the aliens in the movie are almost identical to the ones in "E.T.", and their black swamp-like eyes are reminiscent of "Ju-on: The Grudge";

The townspeople controlled by the aliens are like mutated, self-conscious humans in zombie movies; The protagonist hardly has any lines and often hides from the aliens, just like in "A Quiet Place"; The sudden appearance of thick clouds in the sky, accompanied by lightning, is just like the scenes in "Nope";

The alien's alien core also reminds us of "Alien"; The alien creates an identical clone of the protagonist, and the true girl kills the clone, which is exactly what happens in "Coherence"; Finally, the aliens surround the protagonist, extract her memories, and provide her with psychological healing, just like "Artificial Intelligence"...

There are too many elements from classic movies, and because there is no innovation, it naturally falls short of becoming a cult film. Moreover, the misuse of these elements seems more like a hodgepodge based on the director's preferences, without giving ordinary viewers the fun of a sense of familiarity or allowing hardcore movie fans to experience the excitement of revisiting film history. They just leave people puzzled.

For me, "No One Will Save You" is a failure from any perspective.