An 'intellectual' sci-fi horror

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 2018)

This film isn't at all a light one to watch. Very tense, at some point genuinely terrifying, devoid of an immediate explanation for most of the story elements, and deep in meaning, it is a fairly good science fiction (maybe even horror) film.
The plot centers around a scientific expedition in Area X, a region where laws of nature apparently don't apply and supernatural events happen.
Something I really like about this film is the semi-absence of expositional dialogue. Most of the information is implied or provided visually, and the amount of dialogue is reduced to the minimum. I consider this to be a positive thing in a visual medium like film.
Alex Garland's previous film had an overall gloom tone and tackled with deep themes. This film does the same, but at a magnified grade: towards the second half of the film, the flick provides a huge rate of anxiety to the viewer, while it focuses mainly on psychological themes, such as self-destructing tendencies and depression (hence the title).
Visually, Annihilation is wonderful to watch, end credits included. It has a distinct visual style, which makes it very appealing, and a tendency to blend in well practical and computer-generated effects.
The all-female lead cast seemed to me all right. I wouldn't say it was a particularly challenging film to act in, which also means there weren't any relevant performances, but I can say that the actors where rightfully cast for their roles.
When I first heard about this film, I immediately thought of it as a 'Stalker' rip-off. It has numerous similarities to both the 1979 film by Tarkovskij and the book that inspired the soviet film ("Roadside Picnic"). It still sounds to me very odd that the author of the Southern Reach Trilogy (from which this film was adapted), as he claims, invented by himself such a similar premise and story for his books without knowing about "Roadside Picnic" or "Stalker". I won't get into details, but there are numerous, starting from the features of Area X (the 'Zone' in the russian novel and film), the supernatural events that occur in the place, the institution studying the phenomena and so on.
Annihilation is a stunning and meaningful film, and so far one of the best ones of the year. Definitely it's a memorable netflix original, even though, in my personal opinion, it isn't as thematically deep as its soviet counterpart was.