Since its 2018 release, "Annihilation" remains a haunting visual experience. "Ex Machina" director, Alex Garland, adapts Jeff VanderMeer's 2014 novel of the same name by drawing upon the curiosity and fears of people, places and things that can't be explained. According to Natalie Portman, the film's lead, the cast were startled on set by the most terrifying creature of them all. Portman doesn't outright name the creature, considering she didn't want to give any spoilers of the newly released film at the time. Those that have seen the film, however, know exactly which creature she's talking about. Keep watching to find out the Annihilation scene that terrified Portman in real life.
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00:00The 2018 sci-fi thriller Annihilation brings viewers into a mysteriously transcendental
00:06setting comprised of both horror and beauty. Unfortunately, one element of the film's eerie
00:12ecosystem was too much to handle for its veteran star. Keep watching to find out
00:16the one Annihilation scene that terrified Natalie Portman to film.
00:20In the years since its release, Annihilation remains a uniquely haunting visual experience.
00:25Director Alex Garland adapts Jeff VanderMeer's 2014 novel of the same name by deftly drawing
00:31upon the questions and fears that arise when people experience places and things that cannot
00:36be categorized. There's an anxiousness that comes with searching for answers in an unexplainable
00:40habitat. In Annihilation, this existential cosmic horror is captured through the grotesque beauty
00:46of a mysterious alien environment called the Shimmer, a place in which colors breathe and
00:51evolution never ceases. Even with all the beauty that lies within, the Shimmer is home to a world
00:57of mutated monsters that could leap from the shadows at any point. According to the film's
01:02lead, Natalie Portman, the cast were startled on set by the most terrifying creature of them all.
01:07Around the film's theatrical release, Portman told Collider that, despite knowing the monster
01:12was going to appear in the scene, she and her co-stars were unprepared to see it up close.
01:17In fact, they weren't even sure if the monster would have a physical prop for filming,
01:21or if it would be computer-generated.
01:23"...we hadn't seen the practical thing yet,
01:25and then all of a sudden in the middle of the scene it really jumped out at us."
01:29Her reaction was so genuine, Portman's not even sure the filmmakers used the initial take,
01:34as it may have betrayed her character's stoic nature.
01:37Since Annihilation was a new release around the time of the interview,
01:40Portman remains vague about which creature caused her real fear.
01:44Those that have seen the film, however, know exactly which creature she's referring to.
01:48The monster that Portman is talking about is the terrifying mutant-bear-human hybrid
01:53whose very existence is hard to shake. It's no wonder everyone was so frightened
01:58when they got to see the practical portion of this thing up close and personal.
02:02For context, Natalie Portman's character, Lena, and two of her teammates,
02:06played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tessa Thompson, wake up bound to chairs.
02:11The trio is imprisoned by Anya, the team paramedic, played by Gina Rodriguez.
02:15Anya no longer trusts her teammates, especially Lena.
02:19Right as she's about to slice Lena's stomach open, they all hear a scream
02:23eerily reminiscent of their lost geomorphologist, Cass, played by Tuva Novotne.
02:29Anya runs off to help her friend. After she leaves,
02:32the scene is overtaken by a growl, then piercing silence.
02:41With Anya gone, no one is able to get up and see what's behind them.
02:45Slowly, in walks a horrifically mutated bear,
02:48the very same one that attacked Cass in the shadows earlier in the film.
02:53Prior to the team entering the mystifying bubble, the data regarding what lives inside
02:57the mysterious habitat is vague and unintelligible. Up until the bear's reveal, Garland does an
03:03immaculate job of allowing the audience to experience the shifts within this evolving
03:08and unpredictable biodome. For all that is beautiful, there is an unexplainable ferociousness
03:14and self-destruction to the area's transformation. We see that the shimmer synthesizes human bodies,
03:19animals, and plants to create something new, and this hellish bear is one of those creations.
03:25When this furry nightmare steps into the dimly lit room, each new angle reveals one horrifying
03:30detail after the other. It appears that when Cass was attacked, her mangled body merged with the
03:36bear, among other things, in the shimmer. Similar to how Ridley Scott filmed the xenomorph in 1979's
03:42Alien, viewers are not allowed to get a handle on what this thing is. Garland uses shadows and
03:48abstract angles to suggest more than he shows, letting our fevered imaginations and the terrified
03:54reactions of the actors fill in the blanks. The terror extends to the audio as well. Cass' painful
03:59cries for help are immortalized every time the bear opens its mouth. In line with the strange
04:04hybridizations created in the shimmer, the creature's howls absorbed her final moments
04:09and made them part of its unknowable animal language. Being face-to-face with any wild bear
04:14is already terrifying to think about, but the diseased flesh patches, human skull modification,
04:20and drooling blood put this creature far over the edge as one of our great modern movie monsters.