Number 5's Surreal Creepy Film Collection

[zwanzig]

Await Further Instructions (2018)

It's Christmas Day and the Milgram family wake to find a mysterious black substance surrounding their house. Something is happening right outside their door; a terrorist attack, nuclear war? Descending into terrified arguments, they turn on the television, desperate for any information. On screen a message glows ominously: 'Stay Indoors and Await Further Instructions'. As the television exerts an ever more sinister grip, their paranoia escalates into bloody carnage.

A very unsettling and dreadful film, I enjoyed it very much. There's that paranoia, of being observed and monitored, feeling very oppressive. But that comes with the assumption of an intelligence. [Spoilers]

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Even when about midway I started to assume/suspect that the monitoring was being done by extraterrestrials, there was a sense of bureaucratic authority there. Like, from the start, you envision men in suits sitting in a dark room with many tv monitors, watching this family. All very organized, very structured, this experiment has a function and a goal. Then when things escalate and the walls are further explored, you think, "Oh, must be aliens." But in some form, you're still picturing them in front of monitors, as dignified, callous and cruel scientists. 

...then the chords come out and start puppeteering bodies and the tv and you lose that sense of hope that this has purpose. It's just this virus, this mechanical growth, separate from something with empathy, and insatiable as it takes over everything. The purpose is not a goal, it's not a labeled hypothesis. The purpose is obedience. And that is horrifying. It tantalizes me to want to know more while at the same time making me feel scared of asking questions.

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