Mother Knows Best

Alexandre Aja on his new survivalist horror flick Never Let Go

- STEVE O'BRIEN

THE "SURVIVALIST HORROR" IS A micro-genre that's had something of a resurgence in the past few years, with a spate of family-orientated fright flicks that have successfully crossed over to mainstream audiences. That's the hope, then, that director Alexandre Aja has for Never Let Go, a movie that has echoes of genre stablemates A Quiet Place, It Comes At Night and Bird Box, while at the same time carving its own distinct niche.

"This is a film that was presenting itself as a straightforward survival movie," says Aja about his first reactions to reading Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby's script, "something in the vein of Bird Box and A Quiet Place, but then it was taking another direction. That's really what got me excited."

The movie follows a mother, played by Halle Berry (also an executive producer), and her twin sons (Anthony B Jenkins and Percy Daggs IV) who are living way off the grid in a cabin in the woods. Berry's character insists that they have to protect themselves from a malevolent spirit that has decimated the world outside.