In today’s video I am going to be recapping the events of Annihilation, a 2018 Science
Fiction Horror film. A biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a
mysterious zone where the laws of nature don't apply.
Spoilers ahead! You have been warned. Now like the video and subscribe to the channel
if you enjoy this video.
Our main character, Lena, narrates her experience in a sealed room with a few scientists dressed
in PPE suits. She’s the sole survivor of a top-secret mission. Lomax, her interviewer,
asks about her teammates. She simply says they died.
Lena is a biology professor. Her husband, Kane, had disappeared on a covert military
mission. She’s still grieving about him.
After a year, he returns to her and she’s overjoyed. They sit down and talk. She asks
him about the mission but he gives confusing answers and knows very little. He doesn’t
even know how he came back to her. The only thing he knows is that one moment he was outside
the bedroom and recognized her face.
He sips some water. When he puts down the glass, there’s blood in it. On their way
to the hospital - his condition worsens to seizures and he spits out more blood. Police
sirens follow them. They stop the ambulance and tell everyone to step out. They hold Lena
back and sedate her.
She wakes up in a bed wearing orange overalls. A woman introduces herself as Dr Ventress,
a psychologist. She knows about Lena’s military career of 7 years and her job as a professor.
She asks what her husband told her after coming back to her or before leaving for the mission.
Did he contact her when he was away? Lena tells the truth, which is that he never spoke
about the mission.
She’s informed that her husband’s alive but in a critical condition as a result of
internal bleeding. Standing at the balcony of the Southern Reach
base located at Area X, Lena sees grounds stretching till a strange translucent wall
of a texture similar to oil on water. The base is part of a classified project that
aims to investigate the phenomenon coined as ‘the shimmer’. 3 years ago, a lighthouse
was covered in the Shimmer. From there, it’s been constantly expanding. Nothing or no one
sent in comes back, save for her husband.
Lena makes new friends at the base - Anya, Cassie and Josie who are going into the Shimmer
with Dr Ventress. They are the first all scientist team; unlike previous teams that were only
military. They have two theories on the people that vanish in the Shimmer - someone kills
them or they kill each other.
Lena requests to join the team because she feels she owes it to her husband. She’s
taken into the team because of her military and science background. Ventress’ sets the
mission statement that is to go to the lighthouse. All five women walk into the shimmer.
Inside the shimmer, they’re living in tents in a forest. The team doesn’t remember what
happened after they entered the shimmer. Checking their inventory, they estimate they’ve been
here for 3-4 days. Their radios can’t send signals outside the shimmer and the compass
isn’t working. The only alternative they have is to observe the sun for time and direction.
They trek to a hut near a swamp. Lena observes that flowers of different species are growing
from the same branch.
An alligator pulls Josie Radek into the water. They save her and shoot the alligator. After
inspecting the body, Lena says the alligator is the same case as the flowers. A combination
of different species like a set of shark teeth in an alligator’s mouth.
Lena explains to Lomax that the mutations got stranger as they moved closer to the lighthouse.
They cross the water in boats. Lena and Cass connect after talking about losing a loved
one. Josie and Anya have their own demons. Everyone on the team has a reason for coming
into danger like this; life has dealt them a bad hand.
They see more mutations when they get to land, malignant this time. They reach a facility
that was the headquarters of the Southern Reach before it was swallowed by the shimmer.
They decide to stay there for the night.
Names written on a board tell them the people of the last expedition stayed there as well.
Ventress finds a memory card left by the previous team. It contains a video of Kane cutting
open his teammate’s stomach. The man’s intestine is moving inside him like a worm.
Anya, the paramedic, denies it when it was clearly moving.
Deeper in the facility, they find the spot where the video was shot and the body of the
man pulled apart and stuck to the wall, covered in roots.
Waking up from a memory of her husband leaving, Lena decides to study the cells multiplying
and changing form. She goes to Ventress who is on guard outside. They hear growling in
the distance and wake the others. The fence around the facility is torn open. A bear-like
creature attacks and takes Cassie Sheppard. When they reach to help her, the creature
has already vanished with her.
Next morning, Josie and Anya think they should go back. They have enough evidence to confirm
their theories. Ventress argues that the evidence solves nothing, only raises more questions
and leaves for the lighthouse - the epicenter of the Shimmer. Lena’s logic says that the
way back is 6 days but the perimeter near the coast is only 2 days. Hence, they should
go ahead to get out.
In the present, she admits to Lomax that she lied; she wanted to go to the lighthouse too.
They continue their trek until they find Cass’s boot. Lena investigates ahead on that route
to find her body. Further ahead, they find a house to spend the night in. The plants
around are growing in the shape of human bodies. Josie observes that the radios work, only
they can’t reach outside the shimmer. The signal’s scrambled because radio waves inside
the shimmer refract back. Like a prism. This also goes for biological matter like DNA.
Hence, the cells that were once defining the human body plan are now used as the building
blocks of a plant system.
At night, Lena’s at the microscope again. She takes her own sample and sees her blood
cells changing. She dreams of the memory of cheating on her husband. Filled with regret,
she awakens only to be attacked by an angry and paranoid Anya.
Lena wakes up gagged and tied to a chair with Ventress and Josie beside her. Anya believes
Lena lied about the monster and killed Cass. That’s the truth or Anya’s the crazy one.
She admits to seeing her fingerprints moving and she fears that if she’s cut open like
in the video, they might see her insides moving.
They hear Cass crying for help and Anya runs out of the house. The bear-like creature enters.
They realize that Cass’s cries are coming from the creature’s mouth. The creature
stops at Josie and sniffs. Anya comes back, neck bleeding, and the creature kills her
instead. Josie shoots it. Ventress packs up saying if they wait here any longer, they
won’t be alive or sane. She leaves for the lighthouse.
Next morning, Lena confirms Josie’s refraction theory. Their own cells are being affected.
Small tendrils and leaves are coming out of Josie’s arms. Her cells rapidly transform
and she doesn’t want to fight it. Within seconds she disappears into thin air.
Lena grieves Josie before she resumes her trek to the coast. She sees the lighthouse
in the distance. Crystallized trees rise from the sand. There are bones outside the lighthouse.
She walks inside, gun in hand.
White roots creep up the walls. A camera is facing a skeleton. She plays the footage of
the previous team travelling to the lighthouse. A person from the previous team sits where
the skeleton is and says he thought he was someone, that he had a life. He’s not sure
anymore. He burns himself using a phosphorous grenade.
Beside the skeleton is a black hole. Lena hears voices coming from it and steps into
the tunnel. Inside sits Ventress. She explains that they will be fragmented to the smallest
cell and redistributed. They won’t be them. Her body disintegrates into tiny sparks that
float away until nothing remains of her, her cells splitting and disappearing.
A light calls Lena closer. It takes a drop of blood from her skin, converts it and turns
into a shimmering body. The figure walks towards her. She runs up and it's waiting for her
up there. It mirrors her movements. She hits it with the camera stand and gets knocked
down in turn.
The figure mirrors her again as she regains consciousness and sits up. She runs to the
door but it stops her and pushes her against the door. She loses consciousness again. She
wakes up and reaches for the phosphorous grenade from the bag near the skeleton. She hands
it to the figure. When they touch, it turns into her. Overcoming the shock of the duplication,
Lena pulls the ring of the grenade and escapes. The figure burns. So does the lighthouse and
the mutations with it. The Shimmer fades away.
Lena tells Lomax the origin was alien and that they weren’t mutating but changing
and creating. The disappearance of the shimmer heals her husband. She meets him. Their eyes
shimmer as they hug.
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