Going into Life, I did know more than I was letting on to, which is something one of my friends pointed out while we were watching, that being said, I didn't know how utterly gruesome this film would be, I expected a much more tame space horror, not one where someone's organs get scrambled in a cloud of blood and organ juice, but we'll get to that. Up until that point the film is going pretty predictably, as the introduction to the characters is going on, and you learn to like the people who you know are going to die. The Japanese astronaut was interesting, serving as an emotional anchor for the opening scenes, as he skypes his wife while she's giving birth, and becomes elated that he's dad. The interaction in this scene between him and the crew is great character building, as Ryan Reynolds jokes about who the dad is, and the Russian gestures with a kids story book, it's helpful in setting up the friendship between these people, which gives greater impact to their deaths, and makes the crew feel more human. Jake Gyllenhaal's character is a weird one, someone who loves being up in space, and away from people, even though his prolonged stay on the ISS is literally killing him. This is a character trait that doesn't really go anywhere, only really coming back at the end of the film, with a decision he makes that wouldn't really have been different if he wasn't so antisocial, really it just reminds me that the characters in this film aren't terribly well developed overall. I see it similar to Rogue One in this way, with underdeveloped characters, but its fine because they're still enjoyable to watch and their adventure is a fun one. These astronauts are likable people, and the development they're given gets the job done, for example the British astronaut who's hand gets pulped in all of the trailers, he's disabled, and the scene where he talks about his wheelchair is a great bit of character development. Of course though, they die at the hands of the friendliest sounding Martian ever; Calvin, and while I think Calvin is exactly the kind of monster that would keep little me up at night, I love him. It's great to see how this whole thing starts, and how it builds up in a very natural way; Calvin is an alien, the first one humanity has ever seen, and they brought it back to life, it's completely reasonable that, in a contained environment, they'd be messing around with it, they're scientists, hell, I'm not a scientist and I'd be playing around with it, because it's a fucking alien. This of course leads to the scene in every single trailer, when Calvin crushes the guy's hand; I love this scene, I love how it builds up so effectively, with Calvin first acting defensive and grabbing his hand, and then starting to crunch after he tries to distract it. It starts slow, with them being concerned that it's not letting go, his heart rate starts to increase, which is understandable, it's a scary situation. Then the crunching starts, and everyone starts to panic, the panic gets more intense along with the crunching, before it hits its climax of Calvin mangling one of his fingers, he passes out, Calvin lets go. This may sound evil, but it really isn't, it's entirely reasonable to assume that Calvin was acting defensive in response to the electric wand, then switched to offensive when his heart rate went up and the zappy wand came back, it's an instinctual reflex, and Calvin then lets go when his heart rate drops, and the perceived threat is neutralised.
At least for the first half of the film, that's how they play Calvin, and it works, Calvin isn't a murderous monster, it's a creature with an instinctual desire to survive, and its actions are motivated by that desire, on a ship that's ultimately filled with people trying to kill it, but the film ultimately ruins it in the end, and just makes Calvin a murderous monster for the hell of it, this takes away from the animalistic angle they played on before, the angle that grounded the film in a layer of realism that actually made it scarier. Back to the spoilers though, Deadpool dies, really horribly. I was reminded a bit of Godzilla and Bryan Cranston when it occurred to me that Ryan Reynolds, despite being one of the top billings for this film, and being in all the trailers, is the first person to die, it was pleasantly surprising however, since it proved I didn't know where the film was going to go, or how gory it was going to be. This entire scene in the lab is the first instance of me biting my phone, we should pay respects to the rat who has a majorly fucked up death, when Calvin suddenly lunges for him and, I don't even know how to describe it, but it looked really painful, and really gross, my friend covered his eyes in fact, and scorned me for picking this gem of a film to watch. The tension at this point hasn't stopped, Reynolds is now trying to burn it with an incinerator, and having no luck, before Calvin one ups itself and crawls down his throat, and the three of us collectively shit ourselves at the realisation that this film was going to be rough, seriously, what a horrible way to die. Third place behind Deadpool and the rat is the Russian, who slowly drowns inside her space suit. this is one of the reasons the film bothered me so much, people don't die in this film, they die horribly, every death looks slow and extremely painful, and being in a tight space that's slowly filling with liquid is like something out of a nightmare. The most tame death in the film is the crushed hand guy, whose leg gets devoured slowly by Calvin, followed by the Japanese guy, whose death is a bit of a blur, but was definitely bloody. It's at this point also that Calvin goes from realistic instinctive animal to murderous demon, he even gets a fucking creepy demon Martian face, which is daft, and made practically no sense other than to give Calvin some evil eyes to look at people with, it was pointless. It's also around this point that the tension drops a bit, since the film itself slows down, now most of the crew is dead, and the moral ambiguity of Calvin's actions is out of the window, the film is left with Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson, two of the film's least developed characters, as they hatch a plan to hopefully deal with Calvin and have one of them survive. The scene as they enact their plan, despite being the big final confrontation with Calvin, is probably the least intense scene in the film, and the film looks set to make an anticlimactic ending, which is something I was hopeful wasn't the case, and thankfully it wasn't.
When I say anticlimactic, I mean happy; I always knew Gravity would have a happy ending, since despite pretty much everything going wrong for Sandra Bullock, there's always an underlying sense of hope, her fight to survive and get back to Earth drives the entire film, which is why without cinema 3D and surround sound, Gravity is boring. This film has no hope at all; it's bleak and morbid and tense the most of its length. But even with that, Hollywood's love of happy endings and Calvin's shift from morally ambiguous to evil had me thinking this film would go the safe route, and have Ferguson get back to Earth and Calvin lost in space where it can't hurt anyone. Even as distinguishing the two escape pods got nearly impossible, I did start to think the film would have a happy ending. And by the time the pod landed, I even cracked a joke that she'd landed on Skull Island, being in a very Vietnamese looking bay. It wasn't until the two fisherman started approaching the pod that that niggling sense of dread started coming back, that I realised the confusing little pod dance was deliberate. My review of Life ended with the line, "That childish terror" and I talked about watching horror movies with my older brother when I was younger. Films like Child's Play and The Ring that would keep me awake, because I would be scared that Chucky was going to get me, even if I hated being scared of horror baddies, I can't state enough how amazed I am that Life actually managed to make me that scared again, especially now I'm an adult. Everything about Life's ending is, to me, nightmare fuel; and we'll cut to the chase; the film lingers on the fishermen looking into the pod, then the music instantly starts, as you are shown the inside of pod, and it's covered in nasty looking gooey webbing. If you were at all on the fence about how this film would wrap up, it hits you like a train, the entire film has been setting up how scary and dangerous Calvin is, and the reveal that it made it to Earth, coupled with the disgusting imagery, and the masterful use of music, is positively shit yourself scary to me. As is the fact that Ferguson is now going to die a slow, lonely, cold, claustrophobic death in space, never knowing is Earth is fucked or not, it was the most unsettling screaming I've heard in a cinema in my life. the last shot of this film is fantastically frightening, the film lingers for an uncomfortably long time on an aerial shot of the pod, all the while the music is still building, and building, and building, it fades to black, then lingers again on black, while the music still builds, louder and louder, then the music suddenly stops, and the credits role. It's been a decade at least since a movie monster has made me this afraid, and I don't really know why it happened, but this film got that out of me, it truly is a childish terror, a fear of something under the bed. Whatever triggered this powerful resurgence of mine, it was the result of Life, and that's the reason I loved this film, that's the reason I called it a must watch, despite admitting here that it has weak characters, and throws away some of its tension. That visceral emotional reaction from a film is something I genuinely cherish, even if the film has flaws, little me would have been sleeping with his parents out of fear that Calvin was coming, that it made it to Earth and was out to eat me.
I'm sure to most people my reason for adoring this film sounds silly, but when I left Life, I was thinking I'd just seen an excellent horror film, with a terrifying monster, gripping tension, intense violence, and an ending that genuinely made me afraid, those are enough reasons to love a film for me, and while my friends were scorning me for choosing such a grizzly film, I was convinced that seeing Life was a great call, that had we watched Power Rangers instead, I'd have missed that experience, I can't stress enough how much I love this film, and when this film is out on Blu Ray, you know I'll be there with the lights off and the sound up.
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