There’s a moment in Attack the Block where Sam (Jodie Whittaker) realizes that Moses (John Boyega) is alone. She’s gone into his flat and sees disarray and disorder, she finally understands why he is so strong and smart, this is how he survives, this is all he has. The aliens will be the tiniest of his problems. He has had to survive here as a tough man. The police see him as a criminal, and this white woman has seen him as a threat. “How old are you?” she asks. “Fifteen,” he says. “You look older.” She says surprised. “Thanks.” He says. It’s about as vulnerable as Moses gets, he’s only allowed Sam in so they can use this flat as a trap for the aliens.
Attack the Block opens on Guy Fawkes Night in Britain (Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605). It’s November, daylight is less than ten hours per day, and the shadowed streets are somehow darker as fireworks light the sky commemorating Fawkes's action. For Sam, the night is about to get much darker. She finds herself surrounded by a gang of youths, and they treat her the way they will shortly greet the alien invaders: this isn’t your world, you don’t belong here as they take her valuables.
Before they frighten her even more something crashes into a nearby car. An alien invasion has begun. The boys, led by Moses, kill the alien and take it with them back to the flats where they stash it in the grow room of the local drug dealer. The body might be worth something, so it needs to be “safe”. The boys soon find something else wants that body too, and will rampage the neighborhood to get it.
Embodying the aliens as light-absorbing wolf-like hulks with glowing mouths full of teeth is a fun aspect of the film. That they are also gravity-defying and crawl all over the buildings is also clever. CGI is used to make the aliens more menacing with black fur that seems to absorb light and glowing mouths, but most of the effects were practical. Night and fireworks help, but the low budget of the film called for cost-conscious creatures. As reported by SlashFilm, the creature chasing Pest (Alex Esmail) down the hall was Terry Notary, a stunt coordinator/double and movement coach. The suit Notary wore was nearly identical to the huge, black, furry creature with "glowing green sharp arse teeth" we see in the final product. "In real life, it looked like what it is," said Esmail.
This theme of belonging, alienation, and home is played out in the film, the boys running to their flats for what they’ll need to fight the alien invasion, promising to be home early, or kissing Gran good night. This is their home; this is their world. The police will come eventually about the mugging but even they aren’t ready for these things from another world. The boys are honestly hurt that Sam called the police. In an interview with The Guardian in 2011, Boyega said, “When the police come round it makes it complicated. Even mothers are like, nah, I won't talk to the police.”
John Cornish’s Attack the Block is full of underlying social and class themes. It was no accident that Cornish (writer/director) decided to start with a mugging (he’d been a mugging victim) and set the action in and around Tower Blocks council estates in South London. He has mentioned in interviews that he grew up near an estate and he saw the buildings as “futuristic and science-fictional … like spaceships”.
For Moses and his crew, the outside forces come in many different waves: the police, the drug dealers, and the fierce girls of the block. Alien creatures bent on revenge might just be another surprise. They all are amazed to find that Sam lives in this world too, maybe not all of their world, but this building, this block. They realize if this white woman is helpless, maybe they all are, even as they apologize for robbing her. She wants to lock her door and be done; the boys know doors won’t protect you. What’s coming for you always finds a way in.
Attack The Block's Aliens Were Just As Terrifying Behind The Scenes
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