Release Date – 14th November 2025, Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 8 minutes, Director – Julia Ducournau
After a dodgy tattoo, 13-year-old Alpha (Mélissa Boros) starts to be pushed away by those at school, and isolated by her mother (Golshifteh Farahani) when she may have a spreading virus that could turn her into marble.
The body horror of Julia Ducouranu’s Titane follow-up is much more gradual and less invested in shock factor than her Palme d’Or winner, or debut, Raw. While it could be accused of being more on the nose, with the virus that appears to turn those suffering from it into marble having very clear links to AIDS, it makes for an investing film as the fear of carrying the deadly virus, for which there is no cure, grows.
This is especially the case for 13-year-old Alpha (Mélissa Boros) and her mother (Golshifteh Farahani). After a dodgy letter A tattoo on her arm – both in look and tattooing process, seemingly done with an unclean, pre-used needle whilst almost passed out at a party – Alpha starts to display symptoms of the unnamed virus, leading to her being outcast from those around her at school. One scene involving other students fleeing from a growing pool of blood after an incident in a swimming pool displays the other side of fear for what will happen if she isn’t infected but everyone believes she is.
Isolated by her mother alongside her drug-addicted uncle Amin (Tahar Rahim), who is confirmed to be turning into marble; coughing dust and has back forming into jagged marble edges, a generational story starts to pan out with emotionally stirring effect. Ducournau shows that she’s not interested in just providing a shock factor – Alpha is rated 15, with only really one true ‘shock’ moment, compared to her previous features’ 18 certificates – and wants to use the body horror to tell and impact the story. To grow it in the tired, slightly run-down world that she and her cast and crew have created. One which I couldn’t take my eyes away from.
In general horror doesn’t appear to be the defining focus of the film, although it certainly falls comfortably into the genre with the worry and fear that grow not just within the titular character but her family, contrasted with that displayed by those around her. There’s no need to state further, or at all, the worries that are already present in those early teenage years, they’re naturally on display already as aspects already making things tougher for Alpha as she tries to navigate her new way of life, and the fact that it may be over sooner rather than later.
As things develop, and reach the closing stages, I may have found things becoming slightly tangled in the narrative yet I was still totally emotionally immersed. Alpha proved itself as a film that is primarily about how it made me feel over anything else. And I was totally in-tune with the emotions of the central character, and the ways in which Ducournau witnesses the world and the events that unfold in it. Blending horror into the themes at play and establishing personal character relationships through their fears to expand on both points at the same time with ease.
Whilst tonally different to her previous features, with a slower pace, Ducournau continues to prove herself as a masterful, visionary writer-director. Getting into the emotions of her increasingly scared young protagonist, with a strong performance from Boros, and those around her. The same goes for more fantastical moments when doctors, including Farahani’s character, walk the wards washing patients at different stages of turning into statues knowing there isn’t a cure, and seeing some of them pass away. Deeply rooted in its emotional basis, Alpha is a propulsive horror where the fear and worry are consistently about the conflict of personal and uncertain matters. It’s excellent, stirring stuff. I’ll be first in line for whatever vision Ducournau conjures up next.
A more gradual film than her previous works, Alpha still shows Julia Ducournau as an emotionally in-tune and invested writer-director, using subdued body horror to heighten the personal and uncertain worry and fear on display.
Just A Little Bit Random 