Have any of you ever seen the film "No One Will Save You"?

Likely not considering it came out in September of 2023, fairly recent as of this post. It's a Sci-Fi Action horror film that follows most of the other horror tropes about aliens.

Except, There's a scene that has stuck with me after I watched the movie, almost like an Itch in the back of my skull. It was jarring the first time I saw it, unexpected to be sure, but looking back it was an interesting detail that they could have easily thrown away without any detriment to the story.

So. there is this part in No One Will Save You where Brynn, the film's protagonist, is being stalked by an alien in her home. It almost looks like a little alien you'd see in cartoons but if it was realified with leather grey skin and bones.

Eventually, it tackles her, pinning her to the ground. She bites its arm in order to force it to let go of her, and then spits out it's weird alien blood. She throws pots of boiling water at it, it's a very suspenseful scene that caused my heart to race ever so slightly the first time I saw it. Its stressful as hell.

But at some point during this, The alien creeps around a corner of the wall, no longer hostile towards Brynn. It stares at her for a few seconds, before it takes a pose, lowering its body and extending its arms in a V-like fashion.

And it stays like that as Brynn confusedly backs away from it. It doesn't move, it doesn't lunge at her, it doesn't even say anything. What is it doing? Why is it no longer attacking?

Eventually, No One Will Save You does allude to what the little alien is doing, but this initial viewing of it without any context to back it up was the most impactful part of the movie for me.

Now the film has a whole bunch of other unsettling parts, just like you'd expect any other alien horror film to have, but this one where it just stays quiet in a pose unnerved me the first time I saw it. Honestly it unnerves me now after I've seen it many times.

It almost comes off as an attempt at communication by the alien, almost in the way that humans have sign language and gestures to communicate. And realizing that the first time around, I almost felt sympathy towards it.

I couldn't exactly Place why I felt sympathy towards the alien, it had just been attacking Brynn after all, not even moments before. but it struck me as something that wasn't monster-like, something that couldn't be attributed to the villain of the story.

And I wonder, after seeing so many horror films about aliens, why directors in story writers don't employ a technique like that more. not to say that the movies that don't employ a detail like this are bad, but this scene added something to the movie that I can't quite describe.

A message was sent into space by NASA, at least I believe it was by NASA, but it contained no language. It wasn't a series of words or a message talking about how humans are great and how we would love peace in the universe with other species. Rather, it was a series of diagrams. Little people, infrastructure, the human genome, an attempt at non-verbal communication.

It was more ceremonial than anything else, but it got me thinking, How would you communicate with a species that has an entirely different language?

We have plenty of languages here on Earth, but we also have the same emotions, experiences, and things to point to, to draw connections with. An alien possibly wouldn't have a word for tree, just as we may not have a word for whatever emotions they can feel.

We can disregard sympathy for animals that don't even have a form of communication, lions with nothing more than a roar to Signal food is nearby, but knowing that this alien doesn't rely on animalistic instincts changed how I saw it.

It didn't mean I understood it, it didn't mean that Brynn was suddenly the antagonist in the story, but it changed my perspective a little bit.

That vein attempt at communication was interesting, and I almost feel bad for the alien.

Confused Words,
Xologensis
The Scribe of Creativity, Knowledge, and the Arts
and Someone who wonders about our place in the universe.