Jordan Watson

Horror is a divisive genre of media, and for good reason. Some come to horror movies for a controlled adrenaline rush - wanting to feel anticipation, a rush of terror, and at the end of the two hours know it was just a movie. Others come for an atmosphere - a steady crawl of creepy, rather than the rise and falls of "jump scare" flicks. Often, the latter can end up having as much to say as any other thoughtful drama or heart-filled slice-of-life movie could.

Annihilation, a 2018 horror film starring Natalie Portman, somehow pulled off both of these.

There's plenty of scares that'll make you jump out of your seat, creatures just close enough to reality to make us wonder if they could be lurking in a dark corner somewhere, and tons of shots of gore to terrify. But underneath it is also a movie full of heart, trauma, and of all things, beauty.

Portman stars as a cellular biologist, tasked with a team of other scientists to explore a phenomenon called The Shimmer - a strange area forming around the site of a meteor crash. It turns out her expertise are precisely what's needed in this scenario - whatever was in the meteor is causing everything within this Shimmer to radically mutate - locations, plants, fungi and animals all pose unique threats to the team as they try to get to the center of the crash site.

Interspersed with these tense action sequences is the tale of a woman wracked with guilt, and indeed each of the team members is handling specific traumas as they make their way through these trials. And at the end of the day, the soul of this movie is not in the stellar set designs or amazing visual effects: it's that inevitably, each woman responds to the horror around them in unique ways. An overarching theme presents itself of cancer - and each team member reflects a different response to someone or a loved one receiving such a diagnosis. Some respond with anger, others fear, some give up and let it consume them, and yet others fight with everything they have.

One of the best aspects of this movie is the unique aesthetic of the Shimmer - everything within becomes lush, overgrown and bright - there is a terrifying beauty in the mutated plants and the prism-like quality it gives the sky. It evokes the similar bright, floral designs of Midsommar, though the terror is far more about facing the unknown. While a few of the performances were somewhat underwhelming, Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh both stand out with amazing performances that women are not often given the opportunity to have in Hollywood. The core team being all women feels like a deliberate subversion of a typical action-horror cast, and works well with the deliberately-flipped aesthetic of a bright and light-filled horror movie.

I'd recommend Annihilation for fans of horror wanting something new, that isn't afraid to reject formats typical of the genre, who like a piece that was determined to play with both the darkness and the beauty of something totally alien.