Paramount Home Media has
targeted May 29 for the DVD and Blu-ray/Combo Pack presentation of director
Alex Garland’s latest sci-fi gem, Annihilation.
The ARR works out to 95
days and box office receipts came in at $32.7 million.
Alex Garland gave us the
script for 28 Days Later, which was a sensation by filmmaker Danny Boyle …
a decade went by and then wham, Ex Machina, which he both directed
and wrote. A stunner, cerebral and
creepy … and Garland’s script was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original
Screenplay, losing out to Spotlight.
Now comes Annihilation,
which Garland adapted for the screen from a novel by Jeff VanderMeer (one of
his “Southern Reach” trilogy of books … “Annihilation,” “Authority” and “Acceptance”)
and directed. It too is a stunner.
Annihilation is dark a terror ride … exactly the type of
sci-fi/horror film that genre fans have been demanding, but instead the studios
keep serving up mindless, big-budget CGI drivel, or if not drivel, play it way
too safe. Annihilation is, at the
end of the day, a haunted house thriller, except it doesn’t take place in a
haunted house, but in a deceiving beautiful stretch of woodlands.
Oh yes, and one other
thing, if you are expecting Natalie Portman as Lena, the film’s star, to be
just like her vivacious Padmé of Star Wars, think again. She’s cold (for a good reason) and
clinical.
The set-up is an alien
presence that came crashing to Earth as a meteor and immediately set up shop
around a lighthouse (a metaphor perhaps), creating a dome-like field that has
been dubbed “The Shimmer.” A
psychedelic light show that hides a mystery … everyone and everything (drones)
that has gone inside hasn’t come back.
There’s a prologue
backstory — the film does flip back and forth in time — that establishes a
relationship between Lena, a biologist, and her husband Kane (played by Star
Wars’ “Poe Dameron,” Oscar Isaac, who was Nathan in Garland’s Ex
Machina), who went on a secret mission and never came back. Well, actually he did, but Lena hasn’t been
told, because his secret mission was inside “The Shimmer” … and he is the only
human who has returned (and he is on life support).
So basically Lena is in
mourning as she has lost her soul mate.
It’s a year later and reluctantly Lena is spirited off to “Area X,” where
she learns that Kane is a vegetable and she is given — more or less — the
opportunity to assemble a team (genre fans will recognize this as the “victim
pool”) and investigate the inner-workings of “The Shimmer.”
Her team — all women —
are composed of Josie (Tessa Thompson), a physicist, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer
Jason Leigh), a psychologist, Cass (Tuva Novotny), an anthropologist and a
medic by the name of Anya (Gina Rodriguez).
They are armed to the teeth and very much kick-ass.
Into “The Shimmer” they go
and immediately lose touch with the outside world (the door to the haunted
house slams shut) and what they discover is a woodland/swamp populated by
creatures that have been mutated by the alien force … sort of a bio lab for
experimentation. Tranquil at first —
even strangely inviting — but things soon go south and creatures, the creatures
of nightmares, soon take their toll on the group.
Annihilation is a gem, a sci-fi gem, a creep-out horror tale
that is also a gem. If you missed this
one in theatres, then circle May 29 on your home entertainment viewing calendar
as this is one that will be a must-see!!!
Bonus features, which are
exclusive to the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack SKU, are divided into three “making-of”
segments. The first, “Southern Reach,” has
two sections (featurettes) — “Refractions” and “For Those that Follow” — Area
X, which also contains two featurettes — “Shimmer” and “Vanished into Havoc” —
and lastly, “To the Lighthouse,” which includes “Unfathomable Mind” and “The
Last Phase.”
In other release news
from Paramount Home Media this week, the long out of print ten film collection
celebrating the films of the late Jerry Lewis from the 1950s and ‘60s, will be
available once again on June 12.
Titled Jerry
Lewis 10 Film Collection, fans have bid the price up to over $100 for
the elusive DVD collection, but on June 12 they can once again celebrate The
Stooge (1951, with Dean Martin), The Delicate Delinquent (1956), The
Bellboy (1960), Cinderfella (also 1960), The
Errand Boy (1961), The Ladies Man (1961), The
Nutty Professor (1963), The Disorderly Orderly (1964), The
Patsy (1964) and The Family Jewels (1965) for the
bargain price of just $26.98.
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