Annihilation’s Cosmic Framing

What's YOUR favourite sci-fi horror film??

The bear scene and the lighthouse copy scene are two of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in a film. There are horror movies that can terrify through gore and jump scares, but the psychological horror of those two scenes is unmatched. And they fit so well into the idea of The Shimmer's recombination and copying. I will point out that the title Annihilation is also a physics term that describes when a particle and antiparticle collide and are both annihilated.

There was something so terrifying and tragically…I don’t know, blasphemous about Sheppard’s final cries for help living in the skull bear’s vocal folds. It felt like a hideous mockery, a defilement. I loved it.

Your description of the film as “too realistically unrealistic” is spot on. I love the way this film slowly gets under your skin. The music is incredible as well.

I'm glad this film is getting some shine. I feel it is grossly underappreciated

Loved this movie, as a perfect example of true Lovecraftian cosmic horror: the horror of not understanding anything about the nature of what you're facing or what it wants. Most supernatural/alien horror movies depict the aliens as having some kind of scientifically comprehensible biological nature whose drives are predatory, or its ghosts or demons as beings whose drives are essentially based in human mythology and on human emotions. Demons possessing the souls of human beings or whatever still on some level understand the concept of humans and they are based on our world. The... thing... in Annihilation truly felt alien. As in, stemming from a completely different physical and mental world, with entirely different conceptions. Arrival is the only comparison I can think of that felt genuinely alien.

Annihilation is one of the fine examples of a cosmic horror

If you haven't read the books, I highly recommend. It explains a lot more than the movie does, but in a roundabout way. Once you realise what caused it, where it came from etc, it's such a massive headspin. And what happens to the biologist is haunting as well

Annihilation is a contemporary "The Thing", a scif-fi horror masterpiece overlooked now, but later will gain a cult status and will be studied and appreciated. Great video!!! Thanx!!

I thought it would be an another interesting sci-fi movie, and turned out It’s one of the scariest movies. The scene where she plays the recorded video in the light house was so intense..

I love the concept. Annihilation is most often implied at a dominant species' planetary level. This film however, focuses on annihilation at an atomic level. A rearranging of matter that leaves nothing as it was. An exploratory spacefaring civilisation will find no evidence that we ever existed and I find that rather terrifying.

At the end, the intense, gripping, and unique sound track played a major role for me in significantly heightening the effectiveness of the movie's ability to create a sustained and gripping suspense as the fractal like alien mutations unfolded all around in the lighthouse scene. The score during that part of the movie really should be called out.

Annihilation feels like the realization of The Zone as described in the Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic. It's a place that cannot be meaningfully understood, only speculated about. Both places change you in ways that are at first subtle, but always permanent

I think the thing that will stick with me the most about this movie is how I watched it, entranced by the alien and it's oscillating patterns, then showing up to a lecture at university the next day to find the same patten on the lecturers screen. It's called the Mandelbrot patten and even though I can barely remember that class, that pattern stayed with me - all because it had seemed so alien but turned out to be completely rooted in reality and science. Love this movie!

ahhh this is one of my absolutely favourite movies, Alex Garland methodical composition of this movie and the entire audio-visual experience ended up being one of the cornerstones of my artistic development, it may not have been a successful movie or accurate adaptation but I relly hope someone that cares still gives Garland another chance to create like this.

The bear scene is honestly one of the scariest scenes in cinema. Like I still think about it and get these full body chills and gut wrenching anxiety. Plus both the physical and sound design are horrifying. 10/10

This movie literally gave me a panic attack. It's oppressive atmosphere, especially in the lighthouse, made me want to crawl out of my own skin. Will never watch again but it's an incredible film!

The movie as a whole is one of my favorites, but what I think really sets this movie over the top is the soundtrack especially towards the end. The soundtrack with the alien is the most unsettling and beautiful compositions I've ever heard. Its really otherworldy.

We need WAY more cosmic horror, it’s such an interesting type of horror. Even bad cosmic horror is still interesting as hell

I remember watching this with my wife, she had fallen asleep after a long day while watching and when the movie ended she woke up and said I looked completely stunned. This movie is wild, now I gotta watch it again… wait how long have I been here?