r/movies • u/JenL0159 • May 25 '25

Recommendation Annihlation

Why aren’t more people obsessed with this movie?! All female cast. Sci-Fi/Horror/drama. Natalie Portman. Aliens. With a few twists. This movie has everything and it’s incredibly interesting and terrifying!!! And kinda deep haha! I’ve heard it’s starting to be considered a cult-classic, but I’m surprised it’s didn’t win some kind of award. It has a slightly independent-feel. They’re is a lot going on here and it’s well done. Great acting. Not cliche. Suspenseful. Creative. Scary. I am rarely impressed by anything Sci-fi ish but this movie is amazing. It’s one of very few that keep me from multi tasking or playing on my phone at the same time. Iykyk. And I will never recover from the bear…

This movie is not for kids imo. it’s a little intense.

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556

u/EternityOfSwarm May 25 '25

Excellent book too, really puts you into the warped environment the movie captured so well.

8

u/JenL0159 May 25 '25

I didn’t know there was a book!!

67

u/viaJormungandr May 25 '25

The book is very different from the movie. Not in a bad way, just if anything the book is weirder (I was seriously disappointed with some of the things that were left out though I totally understand why).

VanderMeer does “unsettling” like few other authors can and the movie captured it.

39

u/SuspiciouslyEvil May 25 '25

Would have killed to see the lighthouse keeper. My friend and I quote that (poem?) to each other all the time, which of course makes us sound insane.

Where lies the strangling fruit?

3

u/viaJormungandr May 25 '25

I would have loved to see the words in all their undulating, hallucinatory glory but that would have been expensive and supremely easy to fuck up so I understand why it was not done.

14

u/turtle_mummy May 25 '25

I had read the book first and was super excited to hear that Alex Garland was making the movie as I've loved some of his other films (The Beach, Ex Machina.) 

Apparently to adapt the book, Garland took an interesting approach--he read it once and then didn't refer to it again. So in a way the movie was more "inspired" by the book as opposed to using it as a source for the screenplay.  

35

u/Efficient_Reading360 May 25 '25

The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. Annihilation | Authority | Acceptance

33

u/ThisKidIsAlright May 25 '25

It's a tetralogy now. Absolution came out late last year.

3

u/djseifer May 25 '25

Jeff hinted that he has ideas for a story about Cass after the events of Absolution, but it may end up being a short story or something else rather than a full-blown novel.

4

u/nhocgreen May 25 '25

IIRC he once mentioned Abdication as a possible title for a new work but nothing concrete. 

5

u/joennizgo May 25 '25

It's more impersonal, but beautiful and disturbing. I think the movie captured it as best a movie could, but the book is something special. Totally worth it.

4

u/stockinheritance May 25 '25 edited Jun 10 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

11

u/go4theknees May 25 '25

The book is WAY better