No One Will Save You is a fun, daring horror film unceremoniously dumped on Disney+ like the hit Prey was last year for a straight-to-video chiller that’s the best thing to come out of that streamer since well, Andor. We zoom in on an home in an unspecified time; America – where a young woman, Brynn, is literally alienated from her community – smiling upliftingly at them when she sees them and avoiding them when she can – whilst aliens threaten to tear apart her life and force her to confront her past.
It's a fascinating tension builder; largely silent: few words are spoken, and Dever’s terrific performance is the heart and soul of the piece. Thankfully you buy in completely to her panicked, rushed attempts, and love that she’s experimenting with different genres here – a world removed from the Olivia Wilde comedy Booksmart and further removed from her turn in Justified Series 6. The suspense is there from the word go as the formula echoes obvious stuff like A Quiet Place and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Hush, basically anything where the protagonists are forced to remain silent because of the alien monsters for much of the runtime. It’s a classic gimmick technique deployed in monster of the week shows yet director Brian Duffield applies the same logic to movies in an age where monster of the week television shows just aren’t a thing anymore – Duffield is a man well versed in genre tropes having written The Babysitter , Underwater and Love and Monsters in the past, all solid genre fair and this is more of the same – he knows his wheelhouse and is excellent at delivering a tightly knit drama that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Sound design is key nonetheless and the use of music is also deployed expertly to create tension: there’s a frantic scene where Brynn is frantically running around the house where much of the first act is set trying to turn off the television and the stereo – it’s kind of the combination of no clear identifier as to what timeline the film is set in to give a throwback to the old-style alien invasion serials especially with the Americana atmosphere that really creates such a haunted vibe to No One Will Save You from the off. The wrong things are being released in cinemas at the moment and the wrong things are being dumped in streaming: this film’s positive word of mouth would’ve done wonders for it and Disney have been making poor decision after poor decision for months now, but the one positive to come out of this is watched alone I don’t have to put up with a disruptive audience.
The world-building is done expertly here and that’s partly why it’s so good at creating dread – even such a simple task as going to the police station seems terrifying (it normally does in real life, in all honesty) – and Brynn avoiding people has you asking questions from the off as No One Will Save You keeps its questions tight from the start. There’s early callback to things like Signs here and there feels like M. Night Shyamalan leaving an influence on this work; but that’s because they’re both drawing from the same influences in turn – and even when the thing goes for the predictable approach it’s telling that unlike The Creator, it still finds a way to keep you in the lurch. It goes for the classic horror movie trope of saving the most obvious reveal to the last second and it still finds a way to land – and the end result couldn’t have been more successful. A real gem.
