Annihilation is a bizarre blend of surreal, existential examination of life and a survival horror popcorn-flick. The film’s premise is typical of its genre: a group of stock characters are sent on a dangerous mission and are gradually taken out by beasts and mutations until it’s down to a sole survivor. Yet the film’s straightforward plot is mixed in with an eerily unsettling, horrific even, yet captivating exploration towards evolution. Annihilation is far from what I consider an avant-garde film, yet too unorthodox to be a conventional survival-horror.
Annihilation’s most distinct feature, however, resides in its casting. Annihilation is primarily a five-person show and all five are female. The most prominent male character is the protagonist’s husband, who mostly appears in flashbacks and recordings. Such female focus (which even the film’s protagonist makes note of) may come as little surprise for those who have seen director Alex Garland’s previous works as a screenwriter (including his directorial debut Ex Machina—a female-empowerment film disguised as an androcentric fantasy). Yet Garland has taken it a step further here into uncharted territory. Annihilation is none of the following:
- An all-female remake of a male-centric story
- A raunchy and/or romantic comedy
- A “chick flick”
- A gratuitously sexual film
- A film focused on sexism or any other form of prejudice
- A film that’s survival-horror elements pertain to a male antagonist hunting down weaker females
No, Annihilation is an adaptation of an original story, primarily focused on trained female characters going on a dangerous mission in a serious, dramatic setting.
From what I looked up, such premise is the first occurrence in mainstream media. That’s quite the innovative step and deserves credit for further breaking the boundaries of gender casting in cinema. Such distinction also provides a very rare opportunity for examining what benefits and/or detriments a primarily female cast offers in a gender-neutral setting compared to a primarily male cast. The answer turns out to be, nothing at all. The characters’s genders do not improve nor diminish their generic survival-horror personas. They’re the same stock characters males usually play in these roles: the gruff apathetic leader, the paranoid one that goes crazy, the squeamish one that ends up giving up, etc. All in all, I chalk it up as a point towards gender casting and a strike against the film’s character quality.
Yet Annihilation makes up for its stock “pick ‘em off gradually” characters with great atmosphere, lovely cinematography, bone-chilling music, and some terrifying creatures—including a mutated animal that looks straight out of an SCP article (specifically SCP-682). Annihilation contains aspects to appeal to both mainstream and experimental film audiences yet may also deter either group for being too conventional or unconventional in such regard. For me, Annihilation’s strengths outweigh its weaknesses, with the film’s captivating aesthetics and creative dangers making for an entertaining, interesting experience worth at least a single viewing.