When you've seen as many movies as I have it's rare that one surprises you, which takes you off guard and delivers on the hype that surrounds it. But that's just what happened this week with the release of ATTACK THE BLOCK.
The story takes place in a London building project where low income people live in a high rise apartment complex doing the best they can. Among the tenants is a young woman named Sam who is mugged as the film opens by a group of early teens. This gang of sorts begins to take her belongings when a meteor falls from the sky and crashes into a car on the street.
Sam makes her getaway with this distraction and gang leader Moses takes a closer look. What he finds inside the car is a small creature with grey skin and sharp claws that takes a swipe at him and runs. The gang follows it and after shooting a few fireworks it's way, kills the creature.
Unsure of what they've got on hand they decide it's something they can make money off of selling pictures to some tabloid magazine. The safest place they can think of to hide this discovery is in the complex on the block at the apartment of the local drug dealer. All seems fine until the gang looks out the window to see numerous other meteors landing in the neighborhood. It appears this is a full fledged invasion and these kids aren't about to let their block be taken over.
Things begin to change when they witness the first creatures to come out of these meteors though. Rather than the tiny grey skinned being these are fully grown monsters. As the kids describe them they seem like gorilla alien wolf-like things. Yes that's an apt description but worse. The fur covered creatures are an incredibly dark black but present a wide oral opening filled with green glowing teeth. Not only that they're fast too.
Moses is picked up by the police who've been driving around with Sam trying to find the gang. After he's handcuffed and tossed in back, the police are attacked and eaten by the aliens who then try to get inside their van. With a little help, Sam and Moses escape and head for the rest of the gang.
Now it's on as the gang decides to take on these creatures. Unable to decide if it's just an invasion or if it's something the government has come up with to exterminate the people in the block, they arm themselves with whatever weapons they have and set out to defend the block.
The movie offers a nice blend of humor, suspense and sheer terror as the aliens chase the kids up and down the streets and in the apartment complex. This is a night when not everyone will make it out alive and one can only hope their favorite characters live.
There's the set up but it doesn't do justice to how good this movie truly is. The photography is fantastic, never making things so dark that you can't tell what's going on or see anything happening. Well lit by street lamps and headlights the creatures are clearly visible rather than the usual thing that happens these days with creatures rarely seen. Here they're quite visible and on screen enough that you get to completely enjoy them.
Being able to see the creatures makes this movie. They are at both scary on one hand and interesting to see on the other. You don't want to look away, you want to see them and see them often. Fortunately the film's director agrees and offers plenty of them to watch.
The movie doesn't try and pretend to be a serious take on an alien invasion. Instead it goes full out to offer an entertaining look at what might happen if aliens decided to invade the wrong neighborhood. There are plenty of chills and thrills from beginning to end.
As I said at the start it's rare for me to find a movie that surprises me or leaves me completely entertained. This movie does the trick. As the end credits rolled and had I had the time I felt like I could have watched it all over again right there and then. It will take a prominent space on my shelf. While most folks will be rushing to watch CAPTAIN AMERICA this week, I would recommend that you track this one down instead. I've seen both films and enjoyed this one much more.
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