Joe Cornish appears to have graduated from the same school of low budget genre filmmaking as Edgar Wright. Unsurprising as the two are friends (as well as Wright's name being credited as a producer) yet both have shown a knack for getting the most possible from a shoestring budget. There is one major difference between Attack The Block and, say, Shaun of the Dead though: Shaun is a comedy with horror elements, Block is a horror with hints of comedy.
Yes, there are giggles to be had at the absurdity of hostile aliens crash landing on a Brixton council estate (the protagonists being chavs also helps) but Cornish almost entirely forgoes the comedy tropes he's known for (he is Joe of Adam and Joe fame) and delivers a lean mean creature feature that is both tense and frightening. Things are kept very simple: as fury alien monsters eat their way through a block of council flats, a small group of neighbours join forces in a bid to survive. That really is it, yet like the best monster movies, there is legitimate tension to be found as well as genuine emotion when there are the inevitable casualties. The creatures themselves are rather frightening, indistinct balls of pitch black fur who's only prominent feature is a shark like maw with rows of glowing turquoise teeth. Don't laugh, they're nasty.
As a debut, it's really quite impressive. I would certainly be welcoming a second Joe Cornish film.
4/5
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