Brian Duffield’s No One Will Save You dropped on Hulu last weekend and, whether you liked it or not, it’s certainly got a lot of people talking.
The sci-fi/horror features an alien home invasion, barely any dialogue, and a twisty ending that raises more than a few questions.
So what exactly happens in the film’s final act, and what does it all mean? We’ve broken it down below.
‘No One Will Save You’ review: Alien home invasion horror without the tension
What happens at the end of No One Will Save You?
Pretty much the entirety of No One Will Save You sees Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever), a troubled social outcast, being chased around her house by an invading alien force. The film’s ending sees the aliens finally catching up with her: They implant an unpleasant, wriggly parasite in her throat, beam her up to their spaceship, and look into her childhood memories. This immediately sheds some light on her past — but what exactly happened to her, and why are the aliens so interested?
What happened with Brynn and Maude?
It’s in a final flashback sequence that we discover the source of Brynn’s isolation in her town. This is due to what happened between her and Maude, a former childhood friend and the mysterious subject of the letters she obsessively writes throughout the film.
While playing in the woods when they were children, Brynn and Maude had an argument. Like most of the movie this plays out in silence, so we don’t know exactly what was said. What we do know is that Maude shoved Brynn over, and Brynn reacted by picking up a rock and hitting Maude over the head with it. Maude, presumably, died from the blow. This is the reason Brynn’s the subject of stares about town, and why Maude’s mother spits in her face at the police station.
What do the aliens want?
Aliens always want something, right? So why are these ones implanting bugs in people’s throats and digging into their memories? What’s the purpose of the whole thing? In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, writer/director Brian Duffield characterised the aliens as a species of explorers, suggesting that their primary concern in the movie is learning more about our planet and the things inhabiting it.
“If you have this hyper-intelligent species that is curious about us, then they’re not just coming to wipe the slate clean,” he said. “There is a real curiosity about Brynn, and as they start to figure things out about her, they kind of want to know what happens next in her story.”
The “what happens next in her story” comes after the aliens have discovered the secret that’s kept her trapped in her late parents’ house as a recluse — and rather than controlling her via a throat-bug like the other people in town, the aliens choose to allow her to continue living her life in an idealistic version of the town that’s similar to the one she creates in her own miniature dioramas at home. The movie ends with her dancing in harmony with the town’s alien-controlled inhabitants, seemingly content at last.
“She finally gets something that she didn’t think she would ever deserve, and I like the idea that this kid who has gone through so much had a really happy ending, as strange as it may be,” Duffield said.
How to watch: No One Will Save You is now streaming on Hulu.
