SAVE YOURSELVES!
MOVIE REVIEW

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
SAVE YOURSELVES! - 2020 USA Release: Oct. 2, 2020 Keshet Studios, Last Rodeo Studios, Washington Square Films, Bleeker Street Media, Legion M Rating: USA: R

There's the stars, the dulcet tones of Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining our place in the universe, and the opening credits.

And what of our place in the universe? Well, the last bit of text says this was

The year Humankind lost planet earth.

So... we're Horror movie fans, right? We've seen DRAG ME TO HELL and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. If this is what the movie tells us from the start, then this is the way this movie is going to be. If the title or the opening subtitle promises A TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, there damn well better be a massacre in Texas and not A Pennsylvania Union Grievance.

We're on the same page here, right? The ending is a foregone conclusion and SAVE YOURSELVES! isn't about the destination but the trip.

Okay then, Monsters Invading Earth fans, SAVE YOURSELVES! wonderfully fulfills its obligation in a way you won't suspect.

Here's how it gets there!

The podcast we hear from Tyson is playing on a phone. Su (Sunita Mani: MR. ROBOT [TV]) and Jack (John Reynolds: STRANGER THINGS [TV]) are a 30-something New York City couple addicted to the pretty colors and sounds of their phones. They're deeply in love with each other, still new enough to earnestly, carefully feel their way around each other, but the passion between them is easily doused by any sound effect from the phone calling them away.

Life, filtered through phones and YouTube has them hearing and seeing so much while retaining, experiencing, and knowing so little. They live in Politically Correct mediocrity and they know it.

Now sure, movies and TV have shown us this kind of westernized domestication for decades. Jack and Su are the grown-up energetic yet dull kids of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and they still have that understanding of the world.

Unlike their high school counterparts, they're old enough to realize that they haven't figured anything out, know they don't know everything, and want to gain an understanding, know worthwhile things, do something with their lives, and be "Authentic".

For Jack, this means YouTube learning how to make sourdough bread and he practically treats his jar of fermenting yeast like a pet.

For Su, this means buying into every screwball relationship list, then dragging Jack into her trite home-self-improvement against his will.

Jack has to have answers to the trivial questions Su finds that will make their lives better, though Su doesn't know how that will work. It just will. Somehow.

"Hey!" You may say, "What about the Horror? What about the Aliens?"

Hang on!
They haven't got to The Cabin In The Woods, yet!

Anyway, they go to a party that night to celebrate their friends upcoming nuptials. Everyone there is in their age group, lives as mediocre a life as theirs. Like Chuck (Gary Richardson), party talking about dinosaurs while Jack, lost and adrift, attempts weak contributions. They're all propounding on issues they know little about. Nobody is doing anything "Authentic" with their lives, save for a friend they haven't seen in a while, Rafe (Ben Sinclair).

Rafe regales them with stories from his life of travel. He's doing all kinds of things! None of it seems worthwhile but, by golly he's doing something more "Authentic" than sitting in a cubical in front of a computer all day!

Well, except for the part where he goes to other countries to sit in front of a computer all day.

Still, he's out there in the world doing things!

When Jack and Su express their wishes to live like him, Rafe offers a life ring. Why don't they go to his cabin in the woods upstate? Make a week of it! Get away from the phones and the Internet. Use the silence to figure things out!

They slowly warm to the idea, making sure the other really wants this too and nobody is feeling steam-rolled into action. Soon they are off the grid and on the road.

They're heading for their Cabin in the Woods and not noticing the odd stuff happening in the sky.

When they finally do notice the odd movements in the sky at night, in their ignorance they chalk it up to shooting stars and meteor showers that they could never see in the light polluted skies of the city.

The underlying ethos that runs through all of this is, Su and Jack are useless to humanity, their jobs, the earth, and themselves. Nobody needs them and they are dependent upon the rest of society for everything. They can't hunt, fish, build anything or even start a fire. It's all Jack can do to keep a jar of yeast alive. And it's easier to keep a jar of yeast alive than a cat!

They end their nights with casual pot and alcohol. Their sex is dismal and easily interrupted.

They, like their friends, genuinely want to save the planet from harm, but beyond voicing lip service, have no idea how or where to begin. Even when they attempt to inform themselves online, they are soon distracted by other links, other videos, cute animal animated gifs, until they're buried beneath the colorful electron rubble of information. Before going to bed, they end their nights on the couch answering online questionnaires.

You know, the "What Kind of Potato Are You?", type.

The writing and directing team of Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, working on their nascent feature film, take their time in getting to the horror, though because this is a fun comedy, the horror is palpable yet relatively mild: More dread and tragic than in your face.

There is gore to represent the danger, but SAVE YOURSELVES! isn't gory.

In fact, the R rating is for language and not violence.

The fuzzy aliens, when we finally see them, are a diverse array of colors. Cute but, we soon find out that they are deadly balls of fur like CRITTERS.

Upon first seeing one, Su has no idea if it's alive or a furry piece of furniture, and calls it a Poof (In the credits it's spelled Pouffe, kinda like souffle, but Su still pronounced it poof).

The entire time I was waiting for the aliens, I never felt I was waiting at all.

Why?

Alex and Eleanor give us a wonderful couple of knuckleheads that are ignorant without being stupid: In love without being sappy.

When all hell breaks loose I found myself wanting them to make it, and when I remembered the movie's final tag line in the opening credits, I dreaded that they may not.

The year Humankind lost planet earth.

Mani and Reynolds play their clumsy yet sincere characters with such adorable joie de vivre, that, like watching a couple of innocent playful puppies, unaware of the approaching predator. You don't want to see them come to harm, yet you know it's inevitable.

SAVE YOURSELVES! is heartfelt and heartbreaking fun.

Four ShriekGirls!

This review copyright 2020 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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