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Attack on Titan Pushed Annihilation Director to Rethink Horror Film Men
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Director Alex Garland has a new horror film opening this weekend, the provocatively titled Men from indie film favorite A24. The film follows a woman named Harper, played by Jessie Buckley, who travels to the British countryside following a recent trauma (if the surreal trailer is anything to go by, it's the recent suicide of her husband).
The film opens in theaters on May 20, but critics who were able to see the world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this week have noted that the film's provocative subject matter isn't limited just to its name. Polygon writer Tasha Robinson called the movie, the third directorial outing for Garland, a "thousand arguments waiting to happen." Surprisingly, Garland told Polygon at the film's premiere that it was the anime series Attack on Titan that pushed him to rethink his approach to Men.
So [Attack on Titan] hovers on this strange space between something absurdist and something actually really frightening. I was just really, really impressed. And I thought, on some level, I'm being too — too lazy, maybe. I don't know what the right word is. But I'm just not anything like as good as that, and I've got to get better. So it made me reinvestigate Men and rethink about it. That's the nice stuff about other people's good work — it sort of lifts everyone a bit, you know?
Garland was introduced to Attack on Titan by his daughter. However, even though the anime series may have led the Annihilation director to reevaluate his latest film, he told Polygon that there aren't any moments in Men that directly homages or borrows from the hit anime series. Garland began working on the film's script approximately 15 years ago and has edited and reworked it over time.
Garland previously wrote the zombie apocalypse film 28 Days Later and the psychological sci-fi thriller Sunshine, both starring Cillian Murphy. He directed and wrote both Ex Machina and Annihilation films and was the story supervisor on the DmC: Devil May Cry video game released in 2013.
Source: Polygon (Tasha Robinson)
