After the fantastic ‘The Ritual’ (2017), Netflix returns with another adaptation of another Adam Nevill horror novel, produced by the director of that one, David Bruckner, who maintains the same constants of a seamless terror, without greater pretensions than to tell a little story without wanting to change the genre and with the (increasingly difficult) objective of creating a piece of competent gender. ‘Nobody will get out of here alive’ he succeeds, improving the finish of most of the originals on the platform.
Jon Croker and Fernanda Coppel write a script directed by newcomer Santiago Menghini, Returning to the subject of immigration through the lens of horror cinema, as did the great Remi Weekes film ‘Casa ajena’ (His House, 2020), but where that one focused on the British social conflict, it turns the context into one more element of the atmosphere that does not affect the heart of its intriguing premise.
Elegant twist to the haunted house theater
Amber is an immigrant newly arrived in the United States from Mexico after caring for her sick mother for several years. In search of a degree in business administration, her distant uncle has arranged a job interview for her, but having arrived hidden in the back of a truck, she does not have an identity document, which also makes it difficult for her to stay at the motel where You have been renting a room, because the owner asks you for a DNI.
While Ámbar solves her situation, she earns some money as a seamstress in an illegal farm and decides to move to a very cheap place called Schofield Heights where, obviously, strange events will happen that will make her journey even more difficult. Thus, ‘No one will get out of here alive’ focuses its narrative on Ámbar’s experience, with not a few elements of psychological horror cinema like Polanski’s apartment trilogy making what the protagonist sees never ends up being entirely reliable.
To do this, the film relies on the good job from actress Cristina Rodlo, which creates a very human character full of empathy, but also with dreams and guilt that shows that not everything is what it seems. And within that external goodness she is also capable of showing a fierce force that makes her resist blows, although her face shows very well how her health is collapsing as the circle of bureaucracy and lack of liquidity are cornering her and removing oxygen.
The oppression of the foreigner
The main site where Ámbar begins to see strange things is an old Victorian house that does not need much of the blue-green lighting by Stephen Murphy’s superb cinematography. Dust on the walls, Beatles dioramas, leather chairs, stuffed butterflies and skulls on the walls upholstered with turquoise paper give an anachronistic look to the dwelling where it doesn’t take long for screeching noises to appear, voices emanating from the basement and audio tapes above. ancient rituals. The typical idealist bargain.
Initially ‘No one will ever get out of here alive’ follows classic haunted house tropes, but the origin of the curse is a mystery until the last act and twists the expected in a way as unpredictable as the stupendous and very recent ‘Amulet‘(2020), with which he makes a curious double show of foreign tenants whipped by the supernatural. When the reveal comes, the art design and the visuals far superior to what can be expected of a medium film that the platform has not advertised.
There are important changes with respect to the book, which is a much more extensive horror story that does not go so directly to the background or hangs on the protagonist the guilt of the survivor who matches her with ‘Casa ajena’. Hostility from the outside world towards immigrants is a constant theme which translates into a comment on illegal migration and how some of the people who arrive without papers to another country end up being exploited or worse, but these topics do not take away space for the stars of the function, the ghosts and nightmares.
Simple and to the point horror, less common than it seems
Ghosts with bright eyes like those of ‘Oculus’ (2013), nightmares with a mysterious box, constant presence of moths and some incidental pre-Columbian references that build a folklore alien to what we usually see in American horror movies and that fits very well with ‘The ritual’ in its particular universe of ancestral horrors from around the world. And it is that, although its title may sound generic, ‘Nobody will get out of here alive’ is well above the average of the originals to which Netflix has us accustomed.
It shows that Menghini has tables thanks to his shorts and shows a very clear understanding of horror cinema and his decisions stay away from the volume scare trope, letting the scary moments flow organically with his cool colored look, making the city and home seem inhospitable and unreal, with camera work he explores the geography of its spaces in an eerie way, with wide angles of an unusual elegance for a debut, with a width of vision very thought for the big screen.
Another difference from the usual premieres of the platform is that knows how to display a taciturn terror, very based on his careful editing of sounds and whispers in hollows and drains, which matches between the appearances and the psychological breakdown of the protagonist. ‘Nobody will get out of here alive’ is one of those surprises, ideal for a double Halloween program, for which nobody has asked and that are not called to transform the language of the genre or make noise at festivals, but it treasures production values and talent that many titles shaken as revolutions of the fantastic could envy.