Ex Machina

Annihilation Review: Lovecraft Done Right

There’s a sense of unease all throughout Annihilation, the latest film from Ex Machina director Alex Garland. The strange color palette, booming techno-esque score,and oddly detached performances from the actors add up to a film that is immensely strange, beautiful, and utterly alienating. Few films have really nailed down what made Lovecraft’s monsters so powerful; not just that they were skyscraper sized, tentacled freaks, but that they were completely and utterly inhuman, unimaginable, beyond comprehension. Now since Annihilation is a film, and those generally have to be viewed with your eyes, the spectacle is made a little more sensible. But just a little. Almost every aspect of Garland’s masterpiece remains amazingly alien. The monsters and menaces of Annihilation are a result of a following star, smashing into the Florida Everglades, and infecting the land with an odd rainbow glow. Recalling Lovecraft’s seminal tale, The Colour Out Of Space, The Shimmer, as this forsaken land is coined, warps everything in it’s