How to hatch a new kind of alien
Director Michael Pearce on how his new sci-fi Encounter finds a novel approach to extra-terrestrials
THEY’RE TINY
In Encounter, which stars Riz Ahmed as an exmarine, the aliens are microscopic spores that crash from space and infect other organisms — as laid out in a dazzling, wordless opening sequence that starts in the cosmos and ends in a human blood vessel. “I wanted that sequence to really get a foothold into the sci-fi genre world,” explains the film’s director, Michael Pearce. “I had a desire to start in a very macro-cosmic world and end in the very micro-cosmic world.”
THEY’RE CREEPY CRAWLIES
After crash-landing on Earth, the aliens use insects as their hosts. “The more research I did into insects, the more I felt sympathy for them, because in some ways they’re the glue of nature,” says Pearce. In the film, however, they’re scuttling horrors, transmitters of the spores that could take over the population. A special “insect-photography unit” was hired after filming, to frightening effect. “I don’t have a fear of insects,” laughs Pearce. “I’ve realised, since watching the film with an audience, some people get incredibly unsettled by them.”
THEY MAKE YOU PARANOID
Ahmed’s character starts to suspect up to half the globe is infected; Pearce took his cue from the likes of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, declaring Philip Kaufman’s ’78 remake to be “maybe one of the best sci-fi films ever made”. He sought a more modern spin: “Part of the project was to make a portrait of America as we saw it in late 2020. It continues to be a divided country... That Invasion Of The Body Snatchers template felt useful and resonant.”
THEY MAY NOT EVEN BE REAL
Before long, we start to doubt Ahmed’s character — and even if there are aliens. “The engagement with the character evolves throughout the telling of the story,” says Pearce. “Sometimes he comes across as the hero, he changes into an anti-hero, then becomes what somebody might think is the villain, then back around again. That felt like one of the central mysteries.” Could the scariest aliens be the ones that... don’t even exist?