Of all the sci-fi horror films I've watched Annihilation could be the best. The film is artistically and visually striking with an intelligent script.
Spoilers Ahead⚠️⚠️⚠️

Plot-
Annihilation opens with a meteor hitting a lighthouse. We then see a woman being interrogated by a man in a hazmat suit, with people watching the interrogation through the glass.
We are then shown a flashback, where Lena (Natalie Portman) a successful biologist, is trying to get over the grief of her missing husband and her cheating on him with a colleague. Her husband who had gone on a covert mission has been missing for a year, suddenly walks into her bedroom.
Despite Kane's (Oscar Isaac) return, there is something wrong with him, he seems disconcerted, and confused. Lena too catches on to the fact, but before she can question or ponder further, Kane starts spitting up blood, when he is rushed to the hospital, she is whisked away to a research facility.
The research facility Lena is brought to is called the Southern Reach, and it is a few miles from the lighthouse in the opening shot. Dr Ventless shows her "The Shimmer", a rainbow-coloured wall on the horizon, near the research facility. Dr Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) informs her that no radio signals or manned missions returned past the Shimmer till her husband.
They assume that something past the Shimmer kills people or makes them go crazy and kill each other.
Lena, Dr Ventress, and three others- Anya  Josie, and Cass—will venture into The Shimmer, get to the lighthouse, and return. Well, try to.
The sound design of this movie is spectacular, it keeps us on the edge, disoriented.
The CGI is beautiful and haunting, especially the plants taking human shapes, it is a mutation which is beautiful as opposed to the popular perception of mutations, which are all ugly, distorted and grotesque in general.
Best Scenes- The best scene in this movie is also the most talked about one and the centrepiece of the film, the "Screaming bear" scene. That scene is probably the most terrifying scene I've ever seen, it haunted me for days.
The scene was more terrifying to hear than it was to see, especially when we find out the reason behind its' screaming.
The scene involves Anya tying up her colleagues and holding them at gunpoint but before she could shoot anyone, she hears Crass's (whom Lena found and proclaimed dead) cries and runs towards her only to be mauled to death by the mutated bear.
What's scarier than the massive bear whose snout is half skeleton is the fact that its vocal mannerisms mimic the terrifying screams and voices of its victims, the ones they screamed before it tore them apart.
The next best scene would be the last scene, the confrontation between Lena and the alien or bioform, which replicates Lena as soon it gets a drop of her blood. The viewer experiences mounting anxiety when the alien takes not just Lena's form, but also her mannerisms, it moves the way she does, leaving her without a way to one-up the form or escape. The fight and the imitation between Lena and the form were beautifully and intelligently shot.
All in all Annihilation, in the words of the director is about self-destruction, it is also about evolution, a possible scenario, co-dependence, and the scariest of all our bodies and minds may not be enough for us to survive.
It lingers in your mind and haunts your dreams.

The song playing in the background when Lena is thinking about her adultery and her husband, "Helplessly Hoping" by Crosby Stills Nash & Young, carries a haunting tune. It's a beautiful song yet its association with the movie can creep the listener a bit.
In the wave of repeated concepts of sci-fi, this film is a breath of fresh air, it's uncommon. The film revolves around intelligent characters reacting intelligently to fantastical events.
All in all, Annihilation is a scary and thoughtful movie that leaves a haunting impression on the viewer for a while. (It definitely did on me.)

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