Review: Attack the Block (2011)

Lately, I’ve been running out of decent looking horror titles to watch and the selection on Netflix has been looking grim.  The few movies I’ve reviewed lately have been so bad that I feel another one of that quality could seriously put me over the edge.  So I turned to the Internet to find me something that might be worth watching.  After browsing through list after list and finding mostly movies I’d already seen at least once, I finally came across one on the Rotten Tomatoes Top 75 Horror list that flew by my radar, Attack the Block.  I remember hearing people raving about this one a few years back and decided it was finally time to jump on the bandwagon.  Considering the writer, Joe Cornish, is also involved in the upcoming Marvel Ant-Man project, it can’t be all bad, right?

Attack the Block begins with a girl by the name of Sam.  She’s just gotten back to London and proceeds to get mugged by a local group of teenaged thugs.  The mugging is interrupted, however, by a meteor falling from the sky and landing on a nearby car.  Inside the meteor, a small white beast, all teeth and no eyes.  The teenagers hunt the creature down and kill it, finally realizing that it’s some sort of alien.

Unfortunately for them, the creature is not alone.  Dozens of other meteors begin raining down on their neighborhood, the creatures inside these ones super-sized versions of the one they killed.  The beasts begin hunting the teenagers, though exactly why isn’t revealed until later.

Along the way, police, gangsters and some of the teenage crew themselves fall victim to the big, black, shaggy beasts and the rest of the gang (picking up the girl they mugged as an ally along the way) must flee for their lives and try to figure out why these things are coming after them.  A final battle ensues, and the alien invaders are dealt with in an explosive finale.

Though the movie has little in the way of originality when it comes to the various chases and fights, where it really excels is in the detail the director pays to making the scenes tense and interesting.  We may have seen it all before, but most movies seem to do it half-heartedly.  Attack the Block goes in full force.  The creature design, though incredibly simple, is menacing enough to feel like a real threat - at least when the creatures aren’t acting stupid, that is.

And though there are monsters and several people die in gruesome ways, the movie is really an action/comedy flick with some social commentary attached.  The very kids who are living in poverty and carrying weapons around to mug people turn out to be the ones capable enough to fight off an alien invasion.  By using the slightly wealthier character of Sam, the director manages to show a contrast in the way these poor kids live, giving a bit of heart to the film.

I wouldn’t call it one of the best horror films ever, but Attack the Block is definitely loads of fun to watch.  I wasn’t bored for a second and even the completely cheesy horror clichés did little to throw off my enjoyment.  If you want a smart horror flick that will make you laugh, check this movie out.

Attack the Block courtesy of collider.com