Every Wednesday until the ’Ween, Netflix will drop a new scary flick, and this week it’s No One Gets Out Alive, which seems to be a variation on the haunted-house template. It’s Santiago Menghini’s directorial debut, adapted from the novel of the same name by Adam Nevill, and boasts Andy Serkis as an executive producer. Will it be a Hallowinner or just a Hallowiener? Let’s find out.
The Gist: Scratchy old film footage from 1963 shows us ancient artifacts being unearthed in Mexico, including mummy-ish skeletons and a creepy stone box. The priceless stuff is whisked off to America, possibly by Hobby Lobby, but we can’t be certain. Perhaps improbably, it ends up in the basement of an old gothic manse in modern-day Cleveland. A woman lives there, and the place needs a handyman, a good electrician, a little attention by an interior decorator and considering what happens to this woman, probably an exorcist. The lights flicker and go out, harbinger butterflies appear, something leaves ghostly footprints on the hardwood and she emits a scream as she’s SNATCHED! by a glowing-eyed ghoul. We’ll never see her again. The movie has only one use for her, and that’s to establish that serious ghost shit is going on in this house.
Then we meet Ambar (Cristina Rodlo). She jumps out of a shipping container, freshly illegally immigrated from Mexico. She gets a job in a textile factory, but needs a place to live. An ad on a billboard reads, BIG UGLY DUMP OF A MANSION WITH ROOMS TO LET — NOBODY HAS DIED HERE RECENTLY VIA SUPERNATURAL MEANS, PROMISE — WOMEN ONLY, or at least I assume that’s what it reads, because we don’t get a good look at it, although the WOMEN ONLY part is there for certain. A man named Red (Marc Menchaca) owns the joint. Why WOMEN ONLY, Red? You some kinda creep? Probably, but nobody asks this question, and Ambar isn’t in a position of power here. She has a little bit of cash, no ID and few options. She moves in. One corner of the bed rests on a box, but not that box. No, that box is elsewhere in the house. That box can’t just be sitting anywhere. It’s absolutely the type of box that needs to be inside an inverted pentagram with candles at the points or something.
Anyway, things are going perfectly OK for Ambar. The job is crappy and she’s treated like crap and her boss is a piece of crap, but she has a friend (Moronke Akinola) and a distant relative in the suburbs and a roof over her head. That roof is also over the head of that box, which begins appearing in her dreams about her mother, who was ill for a long time and recently passed. Sometimes Ambar seems to be in the presence of glowing-eyed ghouls, but she isn’t SNATCHED! yet. She hears crying from elsewhere in the house through the vents and once even from the shower drain, but it’s surely just one of the other tenants. She goes to investigate, and how do people in this type of movie investigate things? By walking… slowly… through… the… house… and… slowly… reaching… for… doorknobs. She finds a room with a book titled EARLY MESOAMERICAN RITUALS and an old reel-to-reel playing back a voice recording that goes, “(something something) ritual sacrifice (mumble mumble).” She lies in bed one night and a moth lands on the nightstand and she really mushes it, gets goop on her hand and everything. But a moment later it alights and flits off. If only ghost moths were your biggest concern here, Ambar. If only.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: No One Gets Out Alive seems like low-key Guillermo del Toro worship for an hour, then gets high-key about it in the final act. Think Crimson Peak or The Devil’s Backbone.
Performance Worth Watching: Ambar has minimal personality and character — we feel sad for her because her mother died, and concerned for her because she’s having a rough go as an undocumented immigrant. Rodlo isn’t asked to do much besides look worried and then look scared and then scream, but she does what she can to imbue the character with a little assured self-confidence.
Memorable Dialogue: “I know this house is kinda weird.” — Red deploys Defcon-1 level understatement
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: No One Gets Out Alive emphasizes moody atmospherics above all else — at the expense of character, theme and a plot that resolves itself in any meaningful or sensical way. Menghini spends an hour setting up bowling pins, then chucks wiffle balls at them. Random ghosts, Lepidoptera, bad dreams, EARLY MESOAMERICAN RITUALS and that box — neat, creepy, now what? The hows and whys and wherefores are lost to us. The final act has its moments, a payoff for the MPAA’s promise of “grisly images” and a reveal that tries to out-del Toro del Toro. It doesn’t. I’m pretty sure no one can. Nice try; you at least have to admire the effort.
But that doesn’t resolve the film’s diversion from suggestion to outright randomness. Too many films explain things point blank; this one is the polar opposite. Thematically, is it trying to say something about the immigrant experience? (Hey, guess what — it’s difficult.) About the psychic baggage we carry around with us, no matter where we go — you know, big things in small boxes? There’s a feed-the-beast metaphor lurking in the shadows here, I guess, if you’re feeling charitable. But it all comes down to one thing: You don’t want to know what’s in that box. That’s also a damn flimsy thing to hang a feature-length movie on.
Our Call: The verdict: Hallowiener. No One Gets Out Alive has a moment or two, but it never distinguishes itself among the many, many (many!) movies of its ilk. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.
Stream No One Gets Out Alive on Netflix