camwyn | (no subject)

I went to see Annihilation last night.

Natalie Portman was a very good actress in it. So were Tessa Thompson and Gina Rodriguez. I did not realize it was Jennifer Jason Leigh in one of the roles. Oscar Isaac was very, very pretty. Whoever designed the mutated skull-faced bear monster thing did a great job; I will be using its image and behavior as my baseline for yao guai from now on. And the design on the chamber under the lighthouse had me thinking 'nice vaginal/uterine horror imagery without going all H.R. Giger for once'.

But I honestly cannot recommend going to see this movie unless you have a really, really major hankering for a cross between an all-lady version of The Colour Out Of Space and the Jordy Verrill segment of Stephen King's Creepshow and are not the sort to scream ARE YOU COMPLETELY CRAZY HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN HORROR MOVIES at the characters. And even then I'd go see it at a matinee, because it's not worth full price.

Oh, and the Dissonant Music for Horrific Scenes gets super loud at one or two points, so be prepared for that.

Content warnings: female nudity from the waist up and solely from behind in two scenes, one on-screen violent death, several off-screen violent deaths whose victims are found later and have the camera linger on the results, one scene involving on-screen surgery, two uses of phosphorus grenades, one of which is a suicide.

I understand it was based on a book and that the movie plot bears very little resemblance to the book plot. I may go see if I can find the book at the library.