Jump scares are easy.
Sometimes they can be fantastic - we're thinking of the that bedroom scene in Enemy, or that cop-car scene in The Bay, or that head-in-the-boat scene in Jaws - when they're used effectively and can cause whatever you've been holding at the time to become embedded in the ceiling.
More often than not though, they're cheap and overused, with the sudden appearance of the killer/ghost/killer ghost, accompanied by the speakers blaring what effectively sounds to be an entire orchestra being tasered in unison.
So yes, jump scares are easy.
But the scene we're talking about in Annihilation is not a jump scare.
No, this scene is one that even though we see coming from a distance, and even though we know almost exactly how it is going to end, it still completely rattles your nervous system and leaves you disorientated and shaking for a long time afterwards.
Remember how, at the end of The Blair Witch Project, when they found that house, and the second they decided to go in and check it out, we all knew exactly how it was going to end, but not exactly how it was going to end... and seeing it coming from the distance just kept building the sense of dread and foreboding until that sweet cathartic release arrived except it wasn't sweet at all and it was even scarier than what came before and it left you glued to your chair in fear?
Yeah, that is what this scene from Annihilation is like.
For anyone who has read the book, the adaptation feels (appropriately) like a semi-familiar facsimile, with Natalie Portman as a military scientist volunteering to investigate The Shimmer, an odd phenomenon that has appeared in the middle of nowhere, but is dangerously growing in size. Her husband (Oscar Isaac) was sent in months earlier and promptly went missing, before returning a sole survivor out of dozens of investigators, and has been acting very weirdly since he got back home.
Portman is joined by an all-female crew (Jennifer Jason Lee, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, Tuva Notovny) to find out what exactly The Shimmer contains... and that is all we're going to tell you.
Everything that happens inside should be kept a secret until you watch it, but to say that the they see things that they're eyes and minds can fail to fully comprehend is not a slight understatement.
However, we will warn again that there is one scene - one that is hinted at in the trailer, but fantastically doesn't indicate the direction the scene will take - that left this reviewer absolutely shaking.
It also helps that the rest of the movie is such a fantastic blend of science-fiction and horror than there is a good chance it will end up on a lot of Best Of 2018 lists come this December.
Annihilation will be available to watch on Netflix from Monday 12 March.
Clip via Netflix UK & Ireland
