You can usually judge a film by its tagline, and “A teen gang in South London defend their block from an alien invasion” sounds like the kind that goes straight to DVD and is only mentioned again in whispers on forums for those who ironically love shit cinema.Instead, Attack the Block is in the upper echelon of films that have come out of Britain, featuring a cast that includes Jodie Whittaker and Nick Frost and gives us John Boyega’s on-screen debut. Even now, ten years on from its original release on the 11th of May, 2011, it still holds up.
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Taking place on bonfire night, the film follows Sam (Whittaker), a nurse, and the group of five kids; Dennis, Pest, Moses, Jerome and Biggz, who mug her before teaming up with her to defeat the aliens that have descended on their South London estate. Released in 2011 after the success of films like Kidulthood and Adulthood, it is exactly the kind of film that would also turn into a cult classic. But blending a classic British genre with sci-fi is a difficult thing to pull off. Here, writer and director Joe Cornish, along with some of the cast, tell the story of how Attack the Block came to be. Joe Cornish (Writer and director): It took ten years for the idea to sort of coalesce, and it was inspired by getting carjacked by these kids outside of my house in South London. It struck me as such a weird situation at the time. It was so artificial, like something out of a movie. I thought about how cool they all looked in their masks and it felt like being in a scene from a Western and everyone was just role playing. I thought ‘what would happen if a meteor fell out of the sky and hit the car? How would that change the dynamic?’ Suddenly, the kids who I was frightened of, I’d probably want them to have my back in that situation.Jumayn Hunter (actor, plays Hi-Hatz): When I read the title, I thought ‘OK, this is some hood thing like Kidulthood'. I missed the audition for Kidulthood so I couldn't kick start my career at that time, but when I clocked that the genre was sci-fi I literally lost my shit. I was sitting smoking shisha in my friends house, there’s about 20 of us, and I’m in my own zone freaking out. I’m like this thing that just came through, the genre mix is mad! This is going to be mad, you just don’t mix hood stuff with sci-fi. It was exactly what I wanted and in my head I thought, God, if I don’t get to be in it, at least just let this be as good as I hope it will be because I really want to watch the final product. Alex Esmail (actor, plays Pest): When Joe Cornish first said that's what it was before I had even read the script I was a bit like, ‘OK…’. Going into filming, even once we had the roles and stuff, a few of us thought it was going to be a bargain bin movie. But at that time I didn’t understand how good of a writer Joe was and how well it would work out. It was naivety.
THE PREMISE
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
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INFLUENCES
CASTING
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Esmail: It was my first bit of professional acting you know, I was 15. I found out about Attack the Block through my drama college. They came in and auditioned us at one of our lessons. We played a load of open-ended drama games with us and some of us were going to be considered for the film auditions. Franz Drameh (actor, plays Dennis): I had just turned 16. I had only done a small, small role in Hereafter which was directed by Clint Eastwood just before Attack the Block and a few TV roles here and there. There was the usual rounds of auditions and at that last audition everyone who was going to be in the film was there, like, auditioning for their respective roles, and we all found out together, which was crazy. It was in the spotlight building in Leicester Square and I remember running down the stairs cheering with Simon Howard and Alex Esmail after we found out we all got parts in the movie.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
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For the boys, I went around loads and loads of youth clubs all over London and switched a tape recorder on and settled groups of young people and said ‘imagine this happened’. I went home and transcribed it and ended up with two massive binders of interviews, full of all sorts. As the different characters emerged, we went out to try and find the characters. We tried to find the boy that was as close to Moses as possible.
THE ALIENS
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The idea for them being ultra-black came from my black cat. They look really beautiful when they’re backlit, just like silhouettes. So we had people in suits and rubbed out all the reflections, so it was just a black shadow. In the 80s, the old Space Invaders video game in arcades had an illustration of the aliens and even though they're standing on two legs they're just silhouettes. So yeah, it was just it was just sort of keeping my eyes and ears open and gathering influences and that sort of idea forming.Drameh: There was an element of realism to it. It's one thing to run away from fake aliens when you're working with green screen and CGI, but when it’s physical everything changes. They can’t really see as well in the suits, so if you stop they will charge at you. Terry can really move on all fours. It’s no joke. Hunter: During production I refused to see the aliens because I wanted the first time I saw them in the movie to really be the first time I saw them. So my reaction was 100 percent genuine. Joe started rolling the camera, didn’t tell me, and said there was a power cut or something. The lights went out and then this thing nipped round the corner toward me and I freaked out! My natural response was to start shooting blanks. I was like ‘What the hell is that? Oh my god!’Hunter: They made a cast of my head for when my face gets ripped off by the aliens. I think at some point they were selling them on eBay. They made my whole chest and head as a robot and told me to make some faces and they would make the robot do those faces, which was so creepy. Then they put it next to me and superimposed it into the film. That scene was insane. Never done a scene like that before.
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BEHIND THE SCENES ON SET
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Esmail: I remember when we shot Franz’s [death] and there’s the shot where we’re all looking down at the dead alien and him and we start crying. When they called cut, we came off and we couldn’t stop crying. We were blubbering like idiots for ten minutes and couldn’t turn it off. It was emotional man.
MUSIC
PRODUCTION
THE MESSAGE
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Hunter: Race is a big thing in everything now, so the fact that it was accepted for what it is and wasn’t looked at in a negative way, like trying to make the kids look bad because they’re Black or something. Plus there was enough diversity in the group to represent most of London. I’m very glad that it didn’t look like a stereotype in any way, but I think that’s down to the genre that it is and the way that it was shot and everyone’s individual characters.I really loved the group of girls in the film too. It’s one of the first strong women scenes I’ve seen from UK cinema in my generation. That was a big thing for me. Not only are they defending themselves but they saved the boys too.Cornish: I’m amazed that it’s stuck around for this long, because it didn't do very well at the box office. But then it really took off on home video, or when it was shown on TV. Then as John Boyega’s career took off that gave it another boost. You know, you make a film and put it out there and really it's on its own kind of journey, so it's fantastic that people still watch it and like it.Hunter: I love that not everyone knows about it and that there are still people to experience it, but it’s not us pushing it. It’s the people that love it. People will recognise me from it to this day. One time at the airport some dude, a security guy, comes up to me and he’s screaming with a gun in his hands and I’m scared but he’s like ‘No! Big fan! Attack the Block!’ I’m like ‘oh my god, please don’t do that to me.’Although some of the group of boys succumbed to the aliens, Joe Cornish mentioned a rumours about a sequel on the Script Apart podcast.Cornish: John [Boyega] and I have talked about a sequel. He came over to my house a few weeks ago, before this last lockdown, and we sat together in the garden talking for hours and hours about it until it got dark. Don't hold your breath though, it took ten years to write the first one.Esmail: John had an idea which, to this day, I still think would look so amazing. The invasion has gone London-wide, the ones that get us go and get their masters, then we work out that they’re coming back. We didn’t work out complete story kinks, but we had an overarching idea of it becoming this whole humans versus aliens thing headed up by some of the characters that survived the first one.He had this shot of a load of us lot, with about 30 or 40 more people from the South London area, and the shot would be us coming across the bridge to Parliament all on BMXs and motorbikes with a meteor shower behind us as all the aliens came down.