No One Gets Out Alive ★★★

ENGLISH horror film No One Gets Out Alive (2021) has an intriguing premise but ultimately doesn’t explore it enough.

It starts with a prologue featuring home video footage of what looks like an archaeological team uncovering a container from deep within an ancient Mexican burial site.

We then jump to modern-day Cleveland where Ambar has just arrived illegally from Mexico following the death of her mother. She gets a job in a sweat shop and lodgings in a dodgy boarding house run by a lumbering, unfriendly local Red.

Immediately she starts noticing things that go bump in the night, including Red’s strange brother whom she finds in some kind of trance banging his head against a wall in the hallway. There are also strange sounds, ghostly apparitions, flickering lights and slamming doors; so the usual stuff.

Everything leads up to a climax that relates back to what was in the box brought up from the ancient tomb.

Cristina Rodlo does a good job in the lead role and director Santiago Menghini has seen enough good horror movie to know how to create decent atmosphere and tension. The sound and set designs are also strong.

So what’s the problem. Well, the back story and how it relates to current events is never properly explained or merged in a satisfying way, despite the script being based on a novel which must have explored this connection more fully.

That ultimately leaves us with a film that is pretty good, but could have been a lot better.