Attack The Block (2011)

Attack The Block is a 2011 British science friction comedy horror written and directed by Jon Cornish and starring John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, and Nick Frost. It was the film debut to Cornish, Boyega, and composer Steven Price.

Plot
A teenage street gang has to defend themselves from predatory alien invaders on a council estate In south London on Guy Fawkes night.

Cast

 * John Boyega as Moses
 * Jodie Whittaker as Samantha
 * Alex Esmail as Pest
 * Franz Drameh as Dennis
 * Leeon Jones as Jerome
 * Simon Howard as Biggz
 * Nick Frost as Ron
 * Luke Treadaway as Brewis
 * Jumayn Hunter as Hi-Hatz
 * Danielle Vitalis as Tia
 * Paige Meade as Dimples
 * Sammy Williams as Probs
 * Michael Ajao as Mayhem
 * Chris Wilson as arresting Police Officer

Production
Big Talk Pictures, known for films including Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, produced the film alongside Film4, The UK Film Council and StudioCanal.

The plot was inspired by an event where the director was mugged himself, and after adding the science fiction angle into the plot, Joe Cornish interviewed various kids in youth groups in order to find out what kind of weapons they would use if a real alien invasion occurred. The director wanted to counter the trend of 'hoodie horror' films which demonised urban youths. Cornish also based the character of the stoner Brewis on himself in his twenties.

Filming
Attack the Block is set in a fictional neighbourhood said in-film to be located in the London district of Stockwell. It is actually a composite of various council estates across London. Director Cornish explains:

The name Wyndham Tower appears on the left of the entrance to the fictional tower block, referencing the English science-fiction writer John Wyndham. (Wyndham's 1953 novel,  'The Kraken Wakes', similarly begins with aliens invading Earth from Outer Space.) The science fiction writer J. G. Ballard is also referenced by one of the housing estate street names, Ballard Street; Ballard wrote a number of novels set in large urban tower blocks, including High-Rise where mayhem breaks out in a high-rise London apartment block.

The film was shot across London from March to May 2010, with six weeks of night shoots on the Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle; Myatts Field, Brixton; Oval Underground station and the Bemerton Estate in Islington. Interior scenes were filmed at Three Mills Studios in Newham, part of the East End of London.

Creature effects
The creatures began with two men in gorilla-like suits with animatronic jaws; post-production added the unearthly qualities such as the spiky fur which doesn't reflect any light, the claws, the rows of bioluminescent jaws, and even some of their movement. In total the film features over 100 effects shots, which were completed over the course of 4 months by Swedish effects house Fido. The creatures have no eyes and hunt and find mates using an extremely evolved sense of smell; their movement is enabled mainly through echolocation. According to the DVD commentary, the echolocation noises made by the creatures were a combination of dolphin sonar mixed digitally with the grunts and snarls of dozens of other animals, and even a woman screaming. Some puppets were used, such as the smaller, hairless female alien which terrified the young cast.

Theatrical
StudioCanal's British distribution company Optimum Releasing released the film in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2011. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired the film's United States distribution rights, and the group opened the film in limited theatrical release in the United States on 29 July 2011 through Screen Gems. US distributors were concerned that American audiences might not understand the strong South London accents, and may have even used subtitles if it were to be released in the United States. Cornish acknowledged this during the SXSW Q and A. When he asked the audience, "Can I ask you guys something? American distributors are nervous about language, the slang" the audience said they could understand it.

Home media
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the United Kingdom on 19 September 2011 and in the United States on 25 October 2011. Play.com released an exclusive Blu-ray and DVD double play edition, with a glow-in-the-dark sleeve, featuring the bio-luminescent jaws of one of the creatures.

Box office
On its opening theatrical weekend in the United Kingdom in May 2011, Attack the Block garnered £1,133,859, putting it in third place only slightly behind American blockbusters Thor and Fast Five; also in the opening weekend Attack the Block had the highest cinema site average by almost twice of the other films. On a screen-by-screen basis, Attack the Block was the week's strongest performer. In North America, the film's theatrical run began in July 2011 and was a box office flop despite receiving overall good reviews. Its theatrical run began in July 2011 and, in limited release for less than two months with 66 cinemas at its peak, it managed to gross $1,024,175 (£659,040) in North America.

Critical response
Attack the Block received acclaim from critics. Review aggregation Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 90% based on 183 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Effortlessly mixing scares, laughs, and social commentary, Attack the Block is a thrilling, briskly-paced sci-fi yarn with a distinctly British flavor." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 75 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The website Slash film lists Attack the Block as a "true cult classic" deserving of its own action figures. In his review, Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert praised the film's use of character development and the performance given by Boyega. Scott Wampler of The Examiner rated it A+ and said it was officially the best film of the 2011 film festival season and likened it to other debuts such as Neill Blomkamp's District 9 and Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. Matt Patches writing for Cinemablend said "Attack the Block, even on its small scale, may wind up as one of the best action movies of the year". Christ Tilly at IGN gave it four stars saying "Cornish directs with the confidence of a seasoned pro" and calling the film "a blast from start-to-finish." Ben Rawson-Jones of Digital Spy awarded the movie four stars, saying that it is "exactly the kind of distinctly homegrown product that the British film industry should be making". Mark Kermode gave a mixed review saying he did not dislike the film, but "wanted it to be funnier" and "needed it to be scarier".

Attack the Block was revisited by critics following the casting of its two lead actors as stars of flagship science fiction franchises – Boyega as Finn in Star Wars and Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor in Doctor Who. In a 2017 retrospective, Tom Philip writing for GQ described the film as "one of the most confidently-delivered debut feature films in recent memory" and said it "still stands out as one of the best genre-mashup films of the decade", while Nathan Rabin for Rotten Tomatoes said that the film deserved cult status and called it "a star-making vehicle in the truest sense". It was listed among Wired Magazine 's best films of the 2010s.

Sequel
In May 2021, it was announced that Cornish would be writing and directing a sequel, with Boyega set to reprise his role and produce.