Alien invasion week day continues in this scrappy upstart horror film that manages to be more fun and just as scary as Cowboys & Aliens on less than one tenth the budget.
In this movie the aliens attack a housing project in inner city London, and our “heroes” are a “gang” of wannabe toughs that are all around 14 years old. Early on they mug a nurse, and once the alien invasion gets started and a few bodies drop, the nurse must team up with her recent attackers to fight off the invasion.
What Works: The movie is funny, a little scary, and has a good sense of humor about the tired genre of alien invasions. Like Cowboys and Aliens, Attack the Block joins two existing genres, but this time it’s gang dramas and sci-fi. This mash up may be even more successful and certainly you care about the characters involved. The young gang members are more scared than scary and you feel real danger during the movie’s set pieces (like an attack in a rickety project’s elevator or hallway). Also, the ending is sure to make this film a cult classic.
What Doesn’t: Some of the people in the theater complained that the actor’s strong South London accents made most of their dialogue hard to understand. One guy even said the movie should have subtitles. Still, I didn’t feel this way at all but I wanted to mention a popular complaint. Also, others say the movie isn’t really scary enough, but I sort of attribute that to the film’s shoe string budget. At times, the “male,” CGI aliens look a little on the cheap side but the “female” puppet used looked real enough to me.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Not much. The setting adds enough originality to make it worth the price of admission.