Attack The Block 4/5
Action flows thick and fast in this British horror/sci-fi comedy, reminiscent of a more grown-up version of Gremlins or the more recent Aliens In The Attic. When an alien crashes into a South London housing estate, a group of local teenage hoodlums see it fit to hunt it down and give it a good beating, to show they are "well 'ard". The plan backfires when, all of a sudden, dozens of much larger, much hairier and more more dangerous creatures ("big alien-gorilla-wolf motherfuckers", as one character puts it) begin to, well, Attack The Block. Now, it's up to Moses, his "crew", the local drug dealers, and an innocent mugging victim caught in the middle of it to repel the invasion and keep their housing projects safe.
Much has been made of this movie's connection to Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, due to the involvement of Edgar Wright and Nick Frost. However, one gets the sense those names are there simply to add star power to what is a very engaging movie in its own right. Attack The Block did not need Frost; it survives perfectly well on the back of its teen leads, who look, feel, act and talk like what they are - real housing-projects kids, most making their film debut. Their rapid-fire street slang and mannerisms will no doubt alienate foreign viewers, but anyone who has had a modicum of contact with British culture will be laughing their arses off at all the "innits" and "merc'ings" and "fams" being thrown around. Character development is kept to a minimum, with only the odd hint being dropped here and there, but that fits in with the context - these kids are supposed to be anonymous, the type you would meet should you walk into a less savoury British inner-city area at night. Besides, there's no time to be all deep when you're running away from big hairy aliens with glow-in-the-dark teeth. The movie understands this, and consciously eschews well-drawn-out characters in favour of a nonstop action-fest which is, in turn, exciting, scary, and laugh-out-loud funny.
With the Wright/Frost connection, humour was to be expected, of course, and the film does not disappoint - even though it never goes for cheap laughs, a few witty one-liners and instances of situational humour clearly hit their mark, and will have viewers chuckling even as they anticipate the next scare. What is more surprising is that there are quite a few of these, too - more, in fact, than you would expect from this kind of production. Furthermore, each and every one of them is better and less predictable than what you would find in your average Hollywood shlock-fest - and all the better because of it. Even though gore is kept to a minimum (proof positive that you do not need buckets of tomato sauce to make a good horror movie), there are also some instances of Joe Dante-like gross-out, which will have youths and teenagers squirming in delight, while not spoiling the experience for older viewers.
All in all, then, Attack The Block is a success. It may not be the deepest, most meaningful of productions, but neither does it aim to be it. It understands that, sometimes, all you want out of a film is a rollicking good time - and, on that front, it delivers in spades. It strikes the perfect balance between B-movie cheesefest and big-budget Hollywood cheesefest, then strips away some of the cheese, adds a sprinkle of social commentary, and just enough characterization to effectively turn a bunch of no-future hoodlums into sympathetic anti-heroes. Couple that with creative creature designs, smart one-liners, stoner humour, genre-bending, and hilarious housing-projects dialects, and you got yourself a mandatory viewing for fans of sci-fi horror comedies of all ages.
