ATTACK THE BLOCK (UK/France 2011) ***** Top 10
Directed by Joe Cornish

If there is ever a surprising sleeper of the year that would make most critics’ top 10 films of the year ATTACK THE BLOCK is it.

The premise of this inventive, high-spirited, utterly enjoyable romp is an unlikely alien invasion that begins in a South London project.  These aliens that look like black furry monsters with florescent green fangs and are in reality big alien gorilla-wolf mother f**kers, as they are called by the characters in the film.  These are nasty creatures bent on re-populating the planet unless our unlikely band of heroes can save the day. The heroes are five central 15-18 year old blacks that rob a white trainee nurse, Sam (Jodie Whittaker) as the start of the film.  After the aliens attack, Sam and her robbers become unlikely comrades.  At one point, gang leader Moses (John Boyega) questions why Sam had had not thanked them for saving her life to which she retorts: “f*** you!” Becoming friends, hoodie Pest (Alex Esmail) makes a pass at her claiming that he is wearing his sexy Calvin Klein underwear.

When the film is not working brilliantly with the characters all playing off each other, director Cornish (who has a part experience in comedy British TV) is eliciting audience anticipation and genuine scares as the monsters are chasing and killing off part of the gang.  Cornish’s blend of humour and horror works better than most films of the genre for example, Peter Jackson’s BRAINDEAD or Dario Argento’s OPERA.  Whereas the hilarity is so successful in those two films, the horror aspect is lost unlike Cornish’s film.  When the aliens are chasing the kids around the block for example, the audience is literally at the edge of their seats.  And Cornish is not afraid of doing away with key characters too as in the scene when one alien tears away the sinews and skin of the neck of a victim.

Authenticity is created not only by the sets but by the dialogue and the accents of the actors.  The performances from the cast of unknown players are simply superb.  Like in SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the characters decide the safest place to hide from the aliens is the fortified weed house, at the penthouse of the building.  In SHAUN, it was the local pub.

The film also works with a totally credible premise.  Unlike the recent and unbelievable SUPER 8 that required the alien to attract magnetically all the metal of the town to build a spaceship for it to return home, ATTACK THE BLOCK has not only a believable story but one that provides redemption for the film’s hero Moses as well as a message to all.

Dialogue is surprisingly current and bitingly accurate.  When Pest asks if Sam has a boyfriend and if so why he is not protecting her, her answer is that he is working with the children in Africa. His quick appropriate reply is: “And what is wrong with working with the British kids.” Moses also believes the conspiracy theory that feds (what the kids call the cops in the film) in the film have developed these aliens, just as they have trained dogs in the past, to eradicate blacks from London.

Following the lead of the past B-horror movies clocking slightly less than 90 minutes, ATTACK THE BLOCK is the one rare film that is so thoroughly enjoyable (great blend of funny and scary) that the audience just does not want the film to end.