No One Will Save You Director Talks Revisiting Classic Aliens, Good Studio Notes & More [Exclusive Interview]
"No One Will Save You" arrives on Hulu this weekend, and it's a meticulously crafted, original sci-fi movie with plenty of twists and turns. The film comes from director/writer Brian Duffield, who may not be a household name, but he's written the script for some low-key great genre movies like "Underwater" with Kristen Stewart, "Love & Monsters" with Dylan O'Brien, and "The Babysitter" films on Netflix. Plus, he directed the acclaimed dark romantic comedy "Spontaneous," which you should seek out immediately if you haven't seen it.
With "No One Will Save You," Duffield delivers a suspenseful sci-fi thriller with Kaitlyn Dever ("Booksmart," "Short Term 12") playing a character who is suddenly caught in the middle of an alien invasion of her small town. What's even more impressive than the thrills and mysteries that drive the movie is the fact that it's executed with practically zero dialogue. Funnily enough, that kinda happened by accident. What wasn't an accident was Duffield's push to deliver aliens with the classic gray bodies and pitch black eyes that defined classic extra-terrestrials for so long but have since fallen by the wayside.
Leading up to the release of "No One Will Save You," I spoke with Duffield about creating these classic but evolved aliens, the development process that was bolstered by a surprisingly supportive studio, and much more. Read on for our full interview with the filmmaker, but just beware that while there aren't exactly any straightforward spoilers, you're gonna want to watch the movie before reading on.
Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
'It's very stupid that it was a surprise for me'
Just to start with, how long has this been percolating in your mind?
It's a good question that got interrupted by Covid, in that, I think I wrote it at the end of 2019. Then the spring of 2020, we started trying to put it together and then everything happened. Then a couple of years later, as the world was slowly opening back up, we went back in.
The way I work is I think about things for a really long time, and I don't talk about it to anybody, because it won't make sense. Then, I slowly start writing, and I don't know where it's going. That process was probably a year of figuring it out and writing it. Then it came together quickly, but just with a big two-year pause in the middle.
When you set it off doing this, did you know that it was going to be pretty much a dialogue-free movie? When the trailer itself was without dialogue, I thought, That was awesome. They don't use any dialogue. They set the stage perfectly. I couldn't tell you how thrilling it was watching the movie as it goes on and being like, "Oh my God, they're not saying anything."
Yeah, that's basically how I wrote it, or how I discovered it, too. There's a moment in the movie where Kaitlyn's character goes for help, and it doesn't go well, and she's not able to get a word out. I knew that moment from before I started writing. Then, after that moment, I went back, and I realized that there was never a Brynn character dialogue thing in the movie. I think the opening bit of her was even shorter in the first draft. Then I was just like, "Oh, well, she's going back home now." I was like, "Oh, that's cool." It was a nice, weird surprise. It's very stupid that it was a surprise for me. I feel like a lot of filmmaking is, "I didn't mean for that to happen." Then people are like, "That's really cool." I'm like, "Oh cool. I'm glad that you like that. It was an accident."
You didn't get any pushback from the studio saying, "Someone needs to talk at some point" or anything like that?
No, man, it was cool! The studio and I talked about a lot of different things about the movie, and what was great working with the guys at 20th [Century Studios], J.R. [Young] and [Steve] Asbell, was that they really loved the movie and wanted to make the same movie as we did. Which didn't mean they didn't have thoughts, but it was so cool that everyone was in the same band, which is not often the case. I talked to Steve for hours and hours and hours about thematic moments in the movie. That was really not something that came up that much. It was so funny. It wasn't like a come up and "That's great" or "That's terrible" kind of way. It was hopefully how people watch it too, where they're like, "That's a cool addition," but if the movie didn't have that element, it would still hopefully work.
'How will people know what's going on when they're doing laundry?'
One of the complaints that I've heard writers make is that studios, streamers, and whatnot, they always want things explained more clearly so viewers don't necessarily have to be as active when they're watching. Did you ever have any arguments about keeping some of those mysteries intact?
Not with my studio. I'll tell you the truth, when we were out selling the movie, a bunch of places were like, "How will people know what's going on when they're doing laundry?"
Ugh.
I was just like, "Well, it's not for them." The thing that was so cool about working with 20th is, I think they make movies for people that love movies. Which, hopefully, is not to dismiss other places. But it was so cool working with those guys, because they really love movies. When they would give notes — and they gave a lot of notes, too — but when they gave notes, it was like they were trying to help me get to the same place that they thought I wanted to get to. It was the best creative experience I've had by far. Even if I disagreed with one of their notes, it would really challenge me, because I was like, "They're really smart, and they really love the movie. So if I'm disagreeing, it's coming from a really interesting place." Sometimes I was like, "Oh s***, I'm wrong." It was really cool.
This whole experience working with people that love the movie and love movies, which I know sounds so weird to say the studio loves movies, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way. With 20th, not to make it seem like I'm begging them for my next job, it was really nice to be at a place that loved this movie and loved forcing me to make the movie I wanted to make. It sounds antithetical, but it's like having a trainer at the gym. You are like, "Ugh," but at the same time you're like, "They're making me look really good at the end of it." I felt like that was the studio's job on this one. They were really pushing me in a way that I probably whined about in the moment, but I was like, "Well, I got this six-pack now," so I can't complain.
'They really wanted to make sure the aliens never tipped into being evil'
Do you remember anything specific that they pushed you as far as changes that made the movie better?
One really spoilery one that I'll talk about later. Not even a push, there's something in the third act.
We'll hold any spoilers for after the movie is out.
Okay, cool. But yeah, I'll save it for now. There's one really big thing that no one would ever guess was a note, because it's such a gargantuan thing, and it only happened because we had terrible weather. So there's that.
I'm trying to think if there was a really specific thing that I can really pinpoint. A lot of it was just in that moment to moment stuff. Oh, a big thing for the studio, which I think no other studio in the world would ever say this, is they really wanted to make sure the aliens never tipped into being evil.
Oh, nice.
We have some UFO shots, even big wides, and they were like, "We have in our post-[production VFX] bids, we have the UFO blowing up something in the background." The studio was like, "They can't blow something up because..." and then they would have this very logical reason about that, and they would sell it. That was something really interesting, and that was something I pitched them when I started the movie. I was like, "These invaders are coming, but they're not coming thinking they're bad guys." That makes them a little interesting and a little unusual. That was something that the studio was making sure, if this alien's going after Brynn really hard, did she do something that really triggered that behavior? That was a really fun ... "tug of war" is too harsh-sounding, but that was something that the studio was always like, "Remember, you got to walk this line with these Grays. They are the villains, but they're not evil."
That was something that was really fun, especially in the third act of the movie. They danced this line, and they're right — if they ever tipped over to evil, some of the plot developments wouldn't make sense. It's a really cool thing. I think most other places would've been like, "Yeah, they should be nuking cities." At one point, they were like, "Oh, they should put out that fire." I was like, "That's really funny." They had a whole — the alien's character would dictate that they should put out the fire and not start the fire. I was like, "That's really cool."
'It's maybe my favorite monster design'
Speaking of the aliens, the design of them really digs back into that classic alien look that, gray bodies, big black eyes.
The emoji.
Yeah! What made you go with something a little more familiar and then having this almost video game evolution of different versions of that alien?
Yeah. I love the Grays. It's maybe my favorite monster design. Maybe it's real, based on Roswell, who knows? I just love it. I felt like there had been such a lack of it for a really long time. I would hear about an alien movie coming, and then I would see the trailer and be kind of disappointed that it was this other thing. After so many of those trailers and movies that I loved, I was like, "I just miss my boy." It came out of being like, "Where is this?" I know you can get the keychain and the emoji of it and all those things, but it was because that was the first thing that people were like, "We found this thing," in '45, was it? I can't remember the year. I'm so bad with years. There's something really fun and exciting about that.
As I was starting the movie, knowing Brynn was going to encounter one five minutes in, wanting it to be a design where Brynn and the audience, they see a sliver of it and have everyone go, "That's an alien. It's not anything else. It's an alien. I know it. I know where I'm at." Knowing that we were going to start a movie where most movies end, it gave us the opportunity, like you said, the video game of it all, where you could introduce new features of that alien, but trying to never get boring with it. What are the twists and turns? What's the hierarchy? Building up the culture of that species was really fun and exciting. We have to sell that they're intelligent enough to get here. Do they have a faith in religion? Do they have this? Kaitlyn stumbling in all of this weirdness and absorbing it all and stitching together what this thing is and what the motivations are. Then the audience getting to try to put those puzzle pieces together hopefully in an enjoyable way.
Yeah, exactly.
It felt like you could have all of that fun, and it really helped if you could start off with, page one, everyone's on the same page. Then you're off, and you can mess with the design and add new designs and new features and all that kind of stuff. As long as everyone was on the same page. I really love "The Village," but it wasn't like "The Village," where it's weird, and then you're like, "Oh, but it's a guy, blah, blah." I don't want to spoil "The Village" 20 years later. It ended up being the kind of thing where you see it, you get it, and then you can have a lot of fun with what movie you're in.
'I have no plans to do a sequel'
I also wanted to talk about the sound design for the aliens because, man, it's terrifying. It feels like there's a little bit of "Predator" in there, but then their communication sounds are totally different. What was the collaboration like with your sound designer and pinpointing the sounds that they made?
Oh, great. Yeah, it was so great. I was specifically like, "no clicks," because of "Predator." So we developed this whole language. You can see a little bit in the movie, the alien's hand, the Gray's hand, it does this scan thing throughout the movie. Sometimes it's obstructed, so it's not super clear, but it's doing that, and then the guys are like, "What if we had this radar sound with its finger?" So every time you hear that kind of thing, it's its finger doing that. I was like, "That's awesome." It's so great.
It was Chris Terhune and Will Files, who did our sound. They do all of Matt Reeves' stuff. They're just ridiculous. It was so great getting to be like, these aliens enter her house, and they're not trying to be quiet. They're openly talking to her the whole time, basically. They barely sneak around. They're just "blah, blah, blah" at her. Being able to be like, "Okay, we need to have a language for these guys." Then they need to have a specific sound that, if you hear it, you're like, "Oh, that's the sound from 'No One Will Save You.'" Then it needs to happen enough times that Kaitlyn can recognize different little motifs and beats where she's like, "Oh, they're saying that again."
It's funny, one of the aliens has a whistle call, and it's a little behind the scenes, but it's doing the song Kaitlyn listens to [earlier in the movie], because it's been outside of her house. It's finishing the melody to her, because it just likes music. That was something we talked about, it was like, "Oh, these guys should think music's really cool," and be like, "Oh, people are always singing. She probably likes this song, so we could sing the song to her, because she would probably think that's great." Instead, it's terrifying. I don't know how many people clue in that it's humming the song back to her. It was just fun to get to develop these guys where they're like, "Music's great, let's just like, [singing] 'ooh, ooh, ooh!'" It just felt really fun to build out this ecosystem.
Again, to what the studio was saying, they're not evil. They really like music and they're like, "She likes this song. Maybe this will help her understand we're not all bad." Instead, you're like, this is the scariest thing that's ever happened.
As I wrap up here, I wanted to touch upon the ending. It feels like the end of a "Twilight Zone" episode. It's a little bit happy, a little bit twisted. I wonder if this is something that you still feel like you could dabble in this world and make a sequel for.
I am not the biggest sequel guy. I joked with Kaitlyn, maybe it's every seven years, we'll do our "Before Sunset" and we'll save you. I could do a sequel. I have no plans to do a sequel. If enough people watched it on Hulu and everyone's begging for it, we'll talk. There's not a franchise super plan in my head yet. It would take a lot of work then I'd be so stressed out that I have to come up with something.
"No One Will Save You" is available to stream on Hulu right now.