Attack The Block is a British science fiction film by director and comedian Joe Cornish. The film didn’t perform too shabby over in England, grossing about $5.5 million, but didn’t fair as well here – making just over $1,000,000. However, while doing my weekly sales updates for HorrorSociety, Attack The Block popped up at the Box Office for a number of weeks. This peaked my interest and when I saw Attack The Block show up on On Demand the other night, I knew I had to watch it. And it wasn’t what I expected. Not at all.
Attack The Block is about an alien attack on a specific block in South London. A group of kids witness the invasion begin and start to take arms to defend their block. Here are the two things that I didn’t expect. “The block” is actually a term for the high-rise apartment building and “group of kids” is actually a gang, like street gang. Ok, so, some minor changes in my thought process while judging the film. Did these unforseen movie aspects diminish or heighten my film watching? Yes, and no.
At first, we see the kids of this gang who aren’t doing anything except robbing people and smoking weed. I am not a fan of the whole “hood life” bullshit that younger kids seem to find so interesting. It kind of makes them look like a bunch of losers, to me at least. So at first I started thinking, “I can’t wait until the aliens come and start ripping these kids apart!” Then, we actually see the full-grown aliens…and they’re so cute! The human eating aliens pretty much look like black bears with no eyes and glowing green teeth. Even better! Cute bear-like creatures eating stereotypical gang youths? Sounds like a win-win situation to me!
Wait! Nope! Wrong! As the tension and fear grows, and the youths are thrown into more life and death situations, you start to see their tough (and ignorant) exteriors fade away. It’s at these times that you see the main characters for who they really are and not what they are trying to be. You begin to feel empathy and sympathy for them… Then they take a break and sit around and smoke weed. *eye roll* But, then you see them regain some characteristics that are heroic and kind and you’re right back in the fight with them again. We call this character progression, people, and it is important in any good film.
There is a decent amount of blood in this movie to satisfy gore fans. My favorite death was probably when someone’s face gets eaten off by a pack of aliens. The aim of Attack The Block is not to be bloody, but has gore probably because there will be horrific deaths in battle between people and alien bears. No nudity though…just a lot of weed smoking… and fire works. My overall opinion is that Attack The Block was pretty good. Again, not what I expected; but pretty good none the less! The ending was kind of abrupt, but the rest of the movie was evenly paced. I guess Attack The Block is a good example of not judging a book by its cover. Attack The Block is available On Demand for $4.99. Give it a look if you’re ever bored or in need of a good scifi flick.
One Comment