Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Kaitlyn Dever, Jack Duhame, Lauren Murray, Geraldine Singer, Dane Rhodes, Daniel Rigamer, Dari Lynn, Evangeline Rose, Elizabeth Kaluev.
Everything can be an allegory if you look deep enough for it.
It seems obvious to state that as we look for meaning in between the lines of every part of human life, experience, and words maybe bandied around in jest, but the symbolic metaphor can be found residing, breathing, thriving, in all pieces of art, but when you see it unfold in a way that leaves you breathless, that requires such a barren landscape of vocalised expression to engage the viewer with an abundant brilliance…then you know how deeply the writer has given to metaphor.
No One Will Save You is arguably Brian Duffield’s finest moment yet in cinema, the attention to the symbolic monster, genuinely creepy enough to have come from the mind of Stephen King, and its relationship to the damaged, ignored teenage girl, played with sophistication and charm by Kaitlyn Dever is such that the lack of dialogue plays to the strength of the film with precision, allowing the natural and the alien sounds to truly grab the attention of the viewer.
How we see the world as a teenager is vastly different to that of the adult, all our emotions are heightened, the traumas we bare seem heavier and more alarming, the dangers close us off from those who seem to speak in tongues and an alien language; and as we figure that out that the device intended is one of conformity and traditionalism.
These aspects excel in their awareness in No One Will Save You, and the subtle war between youth and adulthood leaves its dramatic mark as a pair of the elder group leave their distaste known before the invasion begins. It is a moment of disgust, of loathing and revulsion that you would not expect from someone of that age. In this moment the film becomes a commentary of attitude and one to which the quote supplied by the extraordinary Rod Serling is pertinent, “The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism, and he must focus on the issues of his time.”
A terrifically creepy film, a proud addition to the realm of horror, No One Will Save You will give you the nightmares of your youth room to breathe once more.
Ian D. Hall