Beginning a new twist to alien invasion subgenre isn’t exactly easy- the iconography of UFOs and extraterrestrials are so ingrained in society that we now have emojis representing both. It may seem like writer-director Brian Duffield didn’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to flying saucers and men from Mars with his new thriller No One Will Save You. Instead, he took ingredients from previous attacks upon us from other space bodies in past movies, put them all into one blender and then presented the mixture beside Kaitlyn Dever’s gaming screen. This plan works quite well for around 45 tense minutes before No One Will Save You becomes an action film as well as another onscreen allegory that is “about grief, actually.”
Brynn (played by Dever) is a young girl who lives alone in her old family house. She never talks to anyone but writes letters to her friend Maude. Right away, it becomes clear that Maude is long gone too and Brynn might have been involved in her death.
Something wakes Brynn up one night, something bumping into things; she discovers someone else inside her own house – they aren’t from here either. Although she manages to fight off this first intruder to her home, over the next day and night she has to make do on her own against more attackers constantly coming at her.
Duffield successfully builds up tension during the first night by having his camera focus solely on Dever whose face is almost always bathed in a beautiful blueish light. The space invader himself is seen only at shadows and silhouettes mostly being an archetypal grey alien with big black eyes; credit must be given cinematographer Aaron Morton for shooting many night scenes this way so that while still being scary dark the action can always be seen. Staging Brynn’s close encounter like a home invasion thriller in this first sequence mostly works, as long as you suspend a bit of disbelief. Don’t ask yourself why these creatures can use energy to break open thick wooden doors but won’t when Brynn is behind the refrigerator door (probably because doing so would lack that scary old school feeling Duffield is selling).
Duffield’s pastiches run out of steam eventually. After direct homages to Close Encounters, Signs, Fire in The Sky, The Faculty and the 1978 version of Invasion of Body Snatchers No One Will Save You is just too derivative for anyone that wishes they were watching any of those other movies instead. One cannot but laugh at such decisions regarding the theme and plot lines about Brynn’s guilt and grief in the aftermath. For Dever, she is a marvel performing almost like silent film era style movie. Over its ninety minute duration one line across her lips and it still left great impact on audiences even though her eyes did most of the talking with regard to what Brynn was feeling – whether she mourns Maude or fears for her life.
The arrival of more aliens is uncertain in results. Classic black-eyed gray never gets old, but as with all things Duffield and this has them do for you the more you see of them, the less the terror becomes terrifying and really turns out to be just another joke that makes no sense. The reason Jaws Spielberg’s thriller maintains high tension throughout.
Unfortunately it is one of the few films where Duffield didn’t steal a page from any other director.
I loved how they didn’t really explain why aliens were invading or why they were chasing Brynn – it doesn’t have to make sense in these types movies. However, Duffield was wrong to feel it necessary to expose the origin of Brynn’s grief and ostracization in an explicit way because his use of symbolism here was both interesting (and sometimes disgusting) when he illustrated her path towards internal reconciliation where she finds herself.
Additionally, that very final sequence undermines all those emotions, almost like some crazy upbeat ending studios used to call for.
VERDICT
At its best No One Will Save You blends home invasion suspense with alien abduction thrills and Kaitlyn Dever shows she can carry a movie on facial expressions alone. However, ultimately this film fails as it tries simultaneously to be a tangled action movie and an obvious allegory about coping with sorrow and blame.
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