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No One Gets Out Alive (film)

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Wikipedia article




'No One Gets Out Alive' is a 2021 British horror film directed by Santiago Menghini from a screenplay by Jon Croker and Fernanda Coppel, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Adam Nevill. The film stars Cristina Rodlo and Marc Menchaca. It was released on 29 September 2021 by Netflix.

Plot



Ambar, an illegal immigrant, moves from Mexico to Cleveland after her mother passes away. She supports herself with an under the table job and her savings. In search of a place to stay, she finds a dilapidated boarding house run by Red, who demands the first month's rent up front. After moving in, odd things happen to her both at the new boarding house and outside. One night she sees a man banging his head against the door, who she later learns is Red's sick brother, Becker. Some rooms in the house are filled with strange artifacts, including depictions of ritual sacrifice. Ghostly figures are seen around the house.

In search of a better job, Ambar gives a co-worker the remainder of her savings to obtain a fake ID that proclaims her a U.S. citizen, but the co-worker betrays her by stealing the money and quitting her job. Ambar asks her boss for the co-worker's address, but is fired instead.

Frightened by supernatural visions, Ambar flees the boarding house. Desperate for money and unable to receive help from her distant cousin, Beto, Ambar is forced to call Red. They meet at a nearby diner and Red promises to refund her deposit, but only if she returns to the house as he claims to not have enough cash on him. When they arrive at the boarding house, the cash is not in her room as promised. Instead, Becker locks Ambar in her room along with two Romanian women who have also moved into the boarding house. The two women start singing a lullaby which prompts Ambar to sleep.

As Red and Becker prepare the women to be taken down to the basement for reasons unknown, Beto comes looking for Ambar but is assaulted by Becker. Becker takes one of the Romanian women downstairs; Red tells Ambar that his dad was an archeologist (as seen in the home movies at the start of the film) who brought back a stone box from his trip to Mexico in 1963. Something about the box led Red's father, along with his mother, Mary, to trap and murder women (the ghosts that Ambar has seen and heard throughout the house). Discovering what they had done, Red wanted to leave but Becker insisted on staying: each woman sacrificed to the stone box improved Becker's health.

After Red's explanation, Becker takes Ambar to the basement, where she sees the other woman has been decapitated. He ties Ambar to a stone slab in front of an altar where the box sits, opens the box and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. It seems that Ambar is doomed, until Beto bursts into the room and unties Ambar.

As they attempt to escape the basement, Ambar is caught up in a dream of her mother on her deathbed. At the same time, a creature slowly emerges from the box and takes Ambar's head between its hands to read her mind and learn what Ambar has sacrificed. In the dream, Ambar strangles her mother, whose eyes and hands have morphed into those of the creature. This causes the monster, the Aztec goddess tzppltl (God of Paradise made possible through sacrifice), associated with the moth seen throughout the film ('Rothschildia erycina'), to accept the sacrifice and retreat into the box.

Ambar hears Becker and Red preparing the last girl for sacrifice. Becker notices his wounds are not healing. Ambar grabs a macuahuitl from the study and goes upstairs where she injures Red and is then attacked by Becker. The Romanian woman tries to help but is thrown over the balcony and killed by the fall. Becker chokes Ambar, but she slices his carotid artery with an obsidian blade from the macuahuitl and smashes his head with the weapon. She hears Red, wounded but alive, shuffling around in the next room. She brings him downstairs and ties him onto the stone table where she watches the monster bite off his head. As she is leaving the house her ankle, broken by Becker earlier, suddenly heals as a result of sacrificing Red to the monster. Walking through the house, she passes by Red, who has become a ghost like the other sacrificed women.

Cast



* Cristina Rodlo as Ambar

* Marc Menchaca as Red

* David Figlioli as Becker

* David Barrera as Beto

* Moronk Akinola as Kinsi

* Phil Robertson as Arthur Welles

* Joana Borja as Simona

* Victoria Alcock as Mary

* Mitchell Mullen as Rilles

* Vala Noren as Freja

* Alejandro Akara as Carlos

* Jeff Mirza as Motel Manager

Reception



On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 43 out of 100 based on 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References




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