Review: No One Will Save You (Disney+)

By John Corrado

★★★ (out of 4)

A mix of home invasion thriller and alien invasion movie, No One Will Save You is a pretty good little sci-fi flick from writer-director Brian Duffield (Spontaneous), that does some stylistically interesting things with its premise.

This includes unfolding with minimal dialogue to focus on the more visceral thrills of a young woman trying to survive in an old house on her own, which gives it a sort of A Quiet Place feel but for different reasons.

Brynn Adams (Kaitlyn Dever) lives alone in an old secluded farmhouse that appears like it has remained the same for at least a decade. A pariah in town for something in her past, she tries to mostly keep to herself, wearing sunglasses and keeping her head down if she needs to go out.

Brynn barely speaks to anyone, sequestered mostly in her own little world. One night, she hears a noise downstairs in her creaky old house, and gets out of bed to investigate. There is someone in her home, or more specifically something. Duffield’s film is very much modelled as a home invasion thriller, only the home invaders are thin, grey aliens with black eyes that can move objects with their minds.

From the classic big-headed look of the aliens, to the flying saucers, tractor beams and crop circles that appear in the film, the movie embraces a bit of an old school sci-fi B-movie aesthetic, and Duffield is able to establish a creepy atmosphere around it. Due to its minimal dialogue, the film includes a heavy focus on sound effects, building out an eery soundscape that also utilizes a unique score by Joseph Trapanese to help build tension.

The film actually falls slightly short when it tries something a little too narratively ambitious in its last act, with an internal logic that feels a little too opaque. It’s not really clear what these aliens have come for or what their purpose is, and Brynn’s backstory feels like something that could have been explored more fully, which holds No One Will Save You back from being a deeper exploration of grief or trauma (it takes some inspiration from M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, but is a cut below).

Duffield’s film works best when being a more straight-forward survival movie, built around the thrills of someone trying to fight off unwanted visitors in their home. Brynn becomes a scrappy hero who grunts and moans but barely speaks, using her quiet ingenuity and various objects at her disposable to fight back against the alien invaders. Every step of the way, Dever carries No One Will Save You with a very good, mostly physical performance, showing a different side of her range from her usual highly articulate characters. It’s got some cool alien thrills, but the film is mainly worth seeing as a showcase for her.