Attack the Block

Plot synopsis:
Walking home on Bonfire Night through a housing estate in South London, Samantha Adams (Jodie Whittaker), a 25-year-old trainee nurse, is mugged by a small gang of teenage hoodlums: Pest (Alex Esmail), Dennis (Franz Drameh), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Biggz (Simon Howard), and leader Moses (John Boyega). The attack is interrupted when a meteorite falls from the sky into a nearby car, giving Samantha the chance to escape. As Moses searches the wreck of the car for valuables, his face is scratched by a pale, hairless, eyeless dog-sized creature; the object which fell from the sky was its cocoon. The creature runs away, but the gang chase and kill it. Hoping to gain fame and fortune, they take the corpse to their acquaintance, cannabis dealer Ron (Nick Frost), to get advice on what to do. He lives at the top of their tower block, Wyndham Tower.
Moses asks Ron and his boss, Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter), to keep the creature in their fortified "weed room" while he decides how to proceed. More objects fall from the sky. Eager to fight the creatures, the gang arm themselves and go to the nearest crash site. However, they find these aliens are much larger, gorilla-sized, with spiky fur which is so black it reflects no light, huge claws and rows of glowing fangs. Fleeing the aliens, the gang are intercepted by two policemen and Moses is arrested, identified as a mugger by Samantha. The aliens, following Moses, maul the police to death and attack their van, leaving Samantha and Moses trapped inside. Dennis reaches the vehicle and drives the van away, only to crash into Hi-Hatz's car. Samantha runs away while the rest of Moses's gang catch up and confront Hi-Hatz.
Enraged by the damage to his car, Hi-Hatz threatens them with a gun, refusing to believe their story of aliens, until his henchman is attacked by one, allowing the gang to escape. The gang try to flee to Wyndham Tower but are again followed and attacked en route by the aliens, where Biggz is forced to hide in a recycling bin and Pest is severely bitten in the leg. They find that Samantha lives in their building, force their way into her flat, and persuade her to treat Pest's leg. An alien bursts in and Moses kills it with a samurai sword through the head. Understanding that the group was not lying about the creatures being extraterrestrial, Samantha reasons that it is safer to stay with the gang than on her own and joins them. The gang moves upstairs to the flat owned by Tia (Danielle Vitalis), Dimples (Paige Meade), Dionna (Gina Antwi) and Gloria (Natasha Jonas) believing that their security gate will keep them safe. The aliens instead attack from outside, climbing up the side of the tower block and smashing through the windows, one of whom decapitates Dennis.
After Samantha saves Moses' life from one of the aliens, the girls believe them to be the focus of the creatures and kick the gang out of the flat. In the hall, the gang is attacked by Hi-Hatz and more henchmen. The gang escapes while an alien chases Hi-Hatz and his henchmen into a lift. Hi-Hatz kills the alien, though his henchmen perish, and continues his search for Moses. Making their way upstairs to Ron's weed room, the gang runs into more aliens, but using fireworks as a distraction, they manage to get through. Jerome, however, becomes disoriented in the smoke and is killed by an alien. Entering Ron's flat they find that Hi-Hatz is already there. Hi-Hatz prepares to shoot Moses but hordes of aliens smash through the window and tear off his face. Now joined by Brewis (Luke Treadaway), one of Ron's customers, Moses, Pest and Samantha retreat into the weed room, while Ron hides in the flat.
Biggz, still trapped in the bin by a lurking alien, is saved by two unruly children, Probs (Sammy Williams) and Mayhem (Michael Ajao), using a water-gun filled with petrol and a flame to torch the creature from a safe distance. In the weed room, Brewis notices a luminescent stain on Moses' jacket under the ultraviolet light. As a zoology student, Brewis theorises that the aliens are like spores, drifting through space on solar winds until they chance on a suitable planet. After landing in an area with enough food, the female lets off a strong pheromone which will attract the male creatures to it so that they can mate and propagate their species in their new world. Brewis suggests that the smaller, hairless alien which Moses killed in the beginning was such a female and it had left a mating scent on Moses that the larger male aliens have been tracking throughout the evening. The gang form a plan for Samantha, who has not been stained with the pheromone, to go to Moses's flat and turn on the gas oven.
Moses forces Pest to return the ring they stole from her, feeling guilty for having mugged her. Samantha successfully avoids the aliens, turns on the gas and leaves the Block. Moses, with the dead female alien strapped to his back, rushes out of the weed room and into his flat, while the males converge on the scent and chase Moses through the block. Inside his flat he throws the female into the kitchen and the males follow. Using fireworks, Moses ignites the gas-filled room and leaps out of the window. The explosion engulfs the flat and the aliens, but Moses survives, clinging to a Union Flag hanging from the side of the building. In the aftermath, Moses, Pest, Brewis and Ron are arrested, considered responsible for the deaths around the Block including the two policemen who had earlier arrested Moses. Samantha, however, comes to their defence. In the back of the police van, Moses and Pest hear the residents of the Block cheering for Moses.

Tags: dark, comedy, murder, bleak, cult, violence, action, revenge, entertaining

Review:
The throw-back creature-feature title sequence being my main concern.But after that wavery start, I watched over an hour of what I would consider to be one of the truest, bloodiest and certainly most adrenaline-packed horrors I've seen in a very very long time.The main kids - the 'gang' - are very real and the kids' acting really shines.
A little quirk here and there brings the humanity of the characters, the story, and those making the film apparent, and creates the valuable bond between the finished movie and its' audience.As we can see, none of these elements require much of a budget.
use of light and sound, and going story first (everyone knows how annoying is the modern over-focus on CGI over human connection, even when the effects are great); and I have no reason to believe they were looking for cheap actors, but people with desire to go out and do their best and have some fun while at it.This film is fresh and entertaining, and as stated in the beginning, a great lesson in how to make something great out of nothing much..
This is an update on those old much loved films, which takes a simple but outlandish idea, and fuses it with the modern London world.We have here a set of young estate living lads who end up caught up with an alien invasion!
It's like Goonies meets Shaun of the Dead meets Independence Day. The whole alien invasion thing has been recycled as hell lately, but Joe Cornish found a way to make this thing feel so fresh and unique once again by containing it to such a unique setting and having this young group of hoodlums fighting back.
So I sat down to watch ATTACK THE BLOCK and afterwards I found myself questioning if I not only saw the same film but if I shared any of the same moral codes of the critics who praised this dire piece of brain dead , morally empty , unentertaining rubbish The main fault of the film jumps out at you from the very first scene : a nurse walks home late one night and she is robbed by a gang of muggers .
Luckily there's an alien invasion underway so then these scumbags who hold a knife to the throat of a woman can redeem themselves in an example of speciesism But before we get to the redemption we have to endure some " cool right on happening street culture lingo " ( It says here ) that'll get all these wicked kids from da streets punching the air happy in the knowledge someone has made a film that understands them - not .
There's something both highly patronising and offensive about Joe Cornish screenplay and in no way does any of it seem ironic Perhaps the greatest shame about ATTACK THE BLOCK is that there is , if not a good film , then perhaps an entertaining one trying to get out .
"Attack the Block" is set in South London, where writer/director Joe Cornish also actually grew up, and opens immediately with the assault of a young woman by a an aggressive and lawless gang of underage hoodlums.
The characters refer to pretty much every semi-classical Sci-Fi/Fantasy flick to describe them ("Gremlins", "Lord of the Rings", "Harry Potter") but the aliens actually look the most like a crossover between "Critters" and "American Werewolf in London".
The first film from Joe Cornish, one half of cult broadcasting duo Adam and Joe, is a vital horror-comedy that pitches a teen gang against a breed of hairy aliens with glow-in-the-dark teeth.
Cornish has acknowledged his debt to '80s "creature features", but the film this most recalls is John Carpenter's action classic Assault on Precinct 13 - albeit set in London, and with added aliens - as a gaggle of disparate, untrusting souls band together to combat a greater threat, and an unlikely, initially dislikeable hero emerges.While Whittaker is excellent and the supporting players are uniformly fine, the standout performance unquestionably comes from John Boyega as gang leader Moses, with his sullen expression, Adidas-three-stripe-style facial scar and burgeoning understanding of his growing responsibilities.
Indeed, that vitality and invention runs through the whole film, from its "big alien gorilla wolf monster" baddies to the Union Jack reveal: an iconic shot, informed by Roger Moore-era Bond, at the heart of a stunning finale.Perhaps the subplot about middle class drug dealer Luke Treadaway was a bit of a misstep - although funny in itself, it slows proceedings - but everything else about this punchy, idiosyncratic slice of genre fun is absolutely dead-on.
You can either watch a film as a movie - a piece of entertainment that largely gives you what you want and expect - or you can go with more of an open mind and look at it as more of a work of art - something that challenges your perceptions of the world and of yourself.If you approach Attack the Block as just a movie then, yes, your enjoyment of it will depend on whether you can get over the fact that the 'heroes' are, on the surface, unlikeable toerags.However, if you go with more of an open mind, you will see that this film is challenging you to question your assumptions about these modern urban kids.
Sure, it's a bit simplistic about it at times, but there are various moments in the film that I think reinforce the idea that this is what Joe Cornish was trying to do.The invasion against which they fight is more than just a neat special effect - in fact, given the film's budget, it's only barely that.
So when I heard he was producing this new British alien invasion movie, I immediately decided I had to see it."Attack the Block" is about a local street gang of teenagers in London.
He offers us "Attack the Block" as character and horror-driven counter-programming to today's invasion blockbusters.The alien menace in this film is markedly different, as are its protagonists, an inherently unlikable gang of South London teens.
When it lashes out, the boys promptly kill it and then drag it to the drug dealer (Nick Frost) living in their block in hopes of finding out what it is and upping their street cred, but soon after, several shadowy beasts with glowing blue teeth fall from the sky and bound after them.Most of the action takes place in or around the block, and few people other than the central characters get roped into the invasion.
In my opinion this film film is the rated R version of super 8.Which doesn't mean at all its a bad movie just means these films come out not that far apart.the story's are polar opposite there are no adults insight except for pot dealers,gang bangers and some random girl.I had a really great time with this film its short and sweet.The acting in this was actually quite good and there is some character development.The special effects even though its low budget are good and they didn't take me out of the film at all.the creature designs are a strange but great blend of gremlins,ferbies and xenamorphs.The real fun part of this film is all the characters and how there reactions capture wonder of films like E.T. and closer encounters did.I found myself with a smile on my face while watching this movie.I have a feeling this film isn't for everybody because of some of the slang and the sense of humor..
'ATTACK THE BLOCK': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five) British sci-fi/horror creature feature from first time filmmaker Joe Cornish (writer and director).
The story revolves around a small group of teenage 'wannabe' gang members in South London who find themselves fighting for their lives, and defending their block, against alien creatures falling from the sky.
so it was for the soul purpose of setting up a racial gag), Nick Frost, as mentioned before, has an appalling character, The aliens aren't scary, there is no message conveyed, the deaths are so unintuitive that they were almost friendly and the movie is pretty much going nowhere for the most part.The ending is predictable and rotten.Its just bad film making.
The story is a pretty hackneyed tale about an invasion of vicious dog-like aliens who trap a group of people in a London tower block.
Good feature film debut of director Joe Cornish and the bulk of this film was shot in 67 days , having to remove fifteen pages of the script prior to the shooting of the film because of budgetary constraints and he did in depth research on language to accurately convey the way South London street kids speak .
The dialogue was forced and sometimes out of context and quite frankly didn't do anything to erode negative stereotypes on inner city gangs and the IQ, in fact quite the opposite, fully reinforcing the fact they live by drugs, weapons and violence with the collective IQ of any common garden vegetable combined with the typical attitude of shoot now, worry about my life later....much later, possibly never if there lucky...However if can endure a bunch of truly annoying kids constantly saying, 'you get me?' and 'blood' then you'd most likely go to see it several times and then once more!
I enjoyed Attack the Block to a certain degree—it had some really cool creatures, solid action, and is littered with amusing lines of dialogue—but I would have liked the film a whole lot more if there had been just a few more characters I could actually give a toss about.With the sole exception of Jodie Whittaker as Sam, Attack the Block's characters are loathsome pieces of human garbage: teenage gang-members, drug dealers and wannabe gangsters, people with absolutely no regard for the the law or the feelings of others (they also do a pretty good job of murdering the English language).This probably wouldn't have been such an issue had they all suffered agonising deaths, but Cornish's script virtually exonerates these vile individuals of their crimes, turning them into the heroes of the piece.
This film is awful, it is another real reason to feel embarrassed to be British!So the story starts on a rough council estate in London with an act of crime then, guess what, alien invaders fall out the sky and begin doing the usual stuff that aliens seem to like to do...killing people at random.The "plot", if you can even call it that, follows a bunch of chavs (chavs are basically the UK version of poor white trash) from the estate on their quest to help rid their estate of the aliens.That's it basically!The language and accents are so embarrassing to watch, maybe if you are from the US the film could be seen as pure comedy and it would be amusing to see a bunch of British youths trying to act tough and American but, to me, as i am from England it is just plain humiliating.Unbelivebly bad, i can only think that the reason it has a 7+ on IMDb is because there are more chavs in the UK than i thought and they are all loving this film!.
they survive and kill off all the aliens :( They try to humanize the thug characters by showing that one of them is poor and lives with his uncle, and that they only rob people that don't live on "the block" How this justifies them robbing people at knife point, i have no idea.Making this a horror movie and killing off the thugs one by one might have made this movie work.
This teenagers-against-invading-aliens sci-fi thriller has its heart in the right place, but I don't know that I can wholly recommend it.We're introduced to a bunch of punks who live in a bad London neighborhood, who decide it's up to them to protect their block from a host of aggressive aliens that look like shaggy black werewolves.
And it's by sticking to its guns and committing to its thorough Britishness in a fashion that has yet to be overly explored in genre cinema that helps Attack the Block shine as one of the most gung-ho, ferociously fun sci-fi smackdowns in the past several years – and, yes, by far the best alien film of 2011.There's an inescapable Shaun of the Dead vibe about Attack the Block, and writer/debut director Joe Cornish certainly shows a knack for the Wright kind of manic yet grounded mayhem.
There's a lot of movie's these days that like to pull the 'epic' card - drawing out fake sciences, long back stories, adding the lore and mythology of creatures and people into the story, trying to be funny and clever and make you /care/ to such a point that after three hours of staring at the screen you're not even sure what's really going on anymore.
It seems like it takes something special to make a film that's smart, unique and doesn't take more time than it should - but Attack the Block achieves all of this.To summarise, this movie is about an alien invasion on a block of flats in South London - but don't go looking for some in-depth outer space story with movie science and the lot.
Attack the Block keeps the facts short and sweet and spends most of its time following a small gang of teenage boys as they defend their home.The acting is superb, with a cast of well-chosen young actors giving their all.
Revenge of the ASBOs. From the producers of "Shaun of the Dead" comes "Attack the Block", a science fiction comedy that pits savage alien monsters against the Earth's best line of defense, a group of hoody wearing, knife wielding, teenaged youths from the mean streets of South London.The story for this dark British comedy unfolds in the unlikely setting of a deprived and foreboding council estate, where we meet the anti-hero Moses (John Boyega) and his gang as they rob an innocent woman, Sam (Jodie Whittaker) at knife point.
You may wish to be warned that some of the comedy may fly over the heads of a non-British audience, but "Shaun of the Dead" worked as an export and if that's the kind of film you like then you are sure to enjoy Attack the Block – just as long as you can decode the street jargon..
If you were to think of every alien film you had seen, or any you have heard of, you could never imagine it to be anything like Attack The Block.
This is completely original and brings a new look on the out-of- space alien invasion genre that we have seen an awful lot of.Attack The Block is set in London.
However the creatures, black, hairy, gorilla like creatures with luminous green teeth, attack back, and the boys find themselves hiding in the block whilst the alien creatures force their way in and start killing them off.The film is quite typical in the sense of a group of people being stuck in a building being stalked by some alien creature, look no further than the Gremlins movies, but what makes it stand alone is the settings and the characters.
The characters, namely the little gangsta's, are introduced as the most unlikely heroes you can imagine, but as the movie continues on you start to see these guys in more of a friendly light, where they once were mere street thugs they become these socially concerned individuals who've simply had enough of the oppression given to people of their social class; albeit a misguided view most of the time, they have a lot of heart, and that is exactly what gets them through the romper stomp with the "big, scary, wolf, bear mothaf****rs!" The language used throughout was entertaining and appropriate, like that you would expect from some young South Londoners.
The little kids who want to be hard-men are funny as they try to be like the gang, but the middle-class university student played by Luke Treadaway, becoming annoying: possibly because I found him too stereotypical.Overall, this is the best alien based comedy starring Nick Frost this year..
This truly funny and dark movie concentrates on the small band of street bruvs' who are unwittingly thrown into the deep end of an alien invasion and are bound together to save the neighbourhood, the tower block, which they call home.With a street view of urban language and culture, Attack the Block has the script of, both director and writer, Joe Cornish doing a job well done.
The film makes good use of low-tech special effects — fireworks, smoke and black light — with a great, simple alien creature concept.
If you cannot buy into the premise that a teenager who mugs people at knife-point could be a hero trying save his public housing block from alien invasion, then you won't like this movie.
I've seen many Hollywood blockbusters with aliens that can barely be defeated, and what I enjoyed most about Attack the Block was that it's NOT one of those movies.Although produced by the same people who did Shaun of the Dead, this film is not quite as funny.
When you talk about the story, well, here comes the "trashy" element: aliens attack "the block" and want to kill the teens, which don't know why and they try to escape and fight against em and @ some points, the monsters look really scary.
Again, perhaps not a big deal, but as a kid I'd probably fall for it.The aliens look good, but one of the problems with them is that they seem slightly easier to kill off than a gorilla.Some call this a sci-fi movie.
The movie's got loads of humor and sci-fi action, and, if you're the sort of person that has a hard time deciphering thick British accents, subtitles.The alien design in this film is excellent.
A British alien invasion movie that is produced by the "Shaun Of The Dead" people, but not nearly as good.