Life Review (2017)

Life

  Life is the story of a space crew that finds a living organism on Mars. As they tamper with this organism, experimenting with what it can handle enviormentally, they realize that maybe they should have just left it alone. I LOVED this movie for a lot of reasons, and here are some of them:
  1. The characters are smart. A lot of times in horror movies, the script will rely on stupid decisions made by characters to keep the plot progressing. Not in Life though. In Life, all of the characters responded rationally to the threats, making it even more horrifying when the organism would outsmart them.
  2. The organism (alien) itself. I liked that the alien wasn't just a mean, crazy monster. This alien is a survivor. Everything it does it based on it's need to survive. When it kills, it does so in self defense. I loved also the look of the thing, and how it evolved and changed as it went on.
  3. The pacing. While Life gives us a lot more quiet scenes with emotional depth than the average horror, it is never short on suspense. From the moment the alien gets loose, there is this claustraphobic tension that keeps you on the edge of your seat for the rest of the movie. Nobody is safe, and it makes that very clear right off the bat.
  4. The direction. While the acting is top-notch, (no surprise there) the real star of the film is director Daniel Espinosa and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey. It was just a truly good looking peice of work, and on a techincal stand point it really excelled.
  5. It was actually scary! This is a huge one for me because it takes a lot to actually scare me. Life however doesn't hold back. It's graphic, it's intense, it'll leave your knuckles white. For a sci-fi horror, it's extremely grounded in realism, and that makes it all the more terrifying.
  Is Life the touching, layered film that Arrival was? Not necessarily. But I don't think that was the point. 9 out of 10 stars. (I'd Buy It On Blu-ray)