4 ms·

Sounds like sci-fi movie "Under the Skin" with Scarlet Jojansson (based on book by Michel Faber). A beautiful girl is used to attract males to a masked alien sl

by fbn79 4y ago

Sounds like sci-fi movie "Under the Skin" with Scarlet Jojansson (based on book by Michel Faber). A beautiful girl is used to attract males to a masked alien slaughterhouse.

the_af 4y ago
Haven't watched the movie (I just know from the synopsis it's not very faithful to the novel, what with all those biker dudes) but boy is the novel bleak! It's especially depressing because the main character is so unhappy and downtrodden, even though her job is to lure humans to the slaughterhouse.
- fbn79 4y ago
  You have to watch it. I read the book too. The movie is not faithful but I liked it as the book.
- lupire 4y ago
  "even though"? Seems natural.
  - the_af 4y ago
    My phrasing was clumsy but also spoilerish. Trust me it's not natural that she'd be depressed because she led people to their deaths (consider farmers), and in fact, that's not the root of her depression! Let me rephrase for clarity: even though her job is to lead people to the slaughterhouse, making her a "villain" in a more traditional story, we nonetheless empathize with her and feel her pain, since she is an outcast, unhappy with her life and downtrodden by her own people. "Even though" she leads people to their deaths, she lacks any real agency in it; she's pressed into that life.
Tenoke 4y ago
I watched it recently and at no point in the movie is it clear that's what's happening (is it?). They specifically show abstract scenes when she leads them to a house. As far as I could tell it was on purpose so there's no specific explanation of what's going on.
- the_af 4y ago
  Do read the novel. It's very explicit about her nature and what she's doing and why. Whether this explicitness is something good or bad is up to you, but I guarantee the novel is not confusing, just very bleak.
  - arlcode 4y ago
    You did not lie. I just read half of it and for some reason it resonated more with me than usual. Thank you for the recommendation. I found the "it's just a regular job" setting very startling. Bleak indeed.
- three_seagrass 4y ago
  As someone who hasn't read the book but watched the movie, here's my best take (spoilers if you haven't watched it): The main character is from an alien hive race that runs a lot like ants, with workers (main char) and drones (motorcycle man). They are on Earth trying to harvest humans for their skin, but also their meat for research purposes or something, i dunno. Something about being in close proximity to and interacting with humans causes the workers to eventually catch feelings, and need to be replaced. The replacement workers don't care - they're just ants - right up until they catch feelings themselves and the drones have to fetch them for replacement. Hence you watch one worker with her lifecycle on Earth, where she experiences all the good and bad parts of being human.
  - the_af 4y ago
    Interesting. Haven't watched the movie but your description matches the synopsis and clips I have seen. The novel is different, though it hits some of the same notes. Here's the gist of it, and be warned these are SPOILERS: . . . . . . SPOILERS The main character is indeed an alien. She's a non-humanoid alien, hinted at to be a quadruped somewhat similar to a dog/wolf in her home planet. It turns out that humans are a delicacy to her race, harvested for their flesh. This is a low-scale operation (in order not to alert the humans), and for this they need a lure: she undergoes irreversible surgery to turn her into something that looks like a human girl with big breasts (on close inspection, there are some signs she's a flawed imitation, but most victims don't notice until too late). She finds her human form bizarre and painful, and cannot connect either with other workers at the human meatpacking plant (they remain alien-shaped) or with humans (until very late in the novel she considers humans as barely more than cattle, incapable of real feelings). She is an outcast in her own society, very low-class -- she cannot, for example, "pay" for the human delicacy she helps harvest; it's not for the lower classes -- and this job was an alternative to dying young in some kind of high-risk mining job, reserved for the lower classes of her race. She cannot ever recover her alien form and cannot connect with anyone; she finds the planet Earth beautiful, but not the humans that inhabit it. In the end, her situation is hopeless and she dies, which is a sort of release.
jamesgreenleaf 4y ago
If you liked "Under the Skin", you should watch "Vivarium". Once was enough for me. I never want to see either of them again.

by fbn79 4y ago

Sounds like sci-fi movie "Under the Skin" with Scarlet Jojansson (based on book by Michel Faber). A beautiful girl is used to attract males to a masked alien slaughterhouse.

the_af 4y ago

Haven't watched the movie (I just know from the synopsis it's not very faithful to the novel, what with all those biker dudes) but boy is the novel bleak! It's especially depressing because the main character is so unhappy and downtrodden, even though her job is to lure humans to the slaughterhouse.

fbn79 4y ago
You have to watch it. I read the book too. The movie is not faithful but I liked it as the book.
lupire 4y ago
"even though"? Seems natural.
- the_af 4y ago
  My phrasing was clumsy but also spoilerish. Trust me it's not natural that she'd be depressed because she led people to their deaths (consider farmers), and in fact, that's not the root of her depression! Let me rephrase for clarity: even though her job is to lead people to the slaughterhouse, making her a "villain" in a more traditional story, we nonetheless empathize with her and feel her pain, since she is an outcast, unhappy with her life and downtrodden by her own people. "Even though" she leads people to their deaths, she lacks any real agency in it; she's pressed into that life.

Tenoke 4y ago

I watched it recently and at no point in the movie is it clear that's what's happening (is it?). They specifically show abstract scenes when she leads them to a house. As far as I could tell it was on purpose so there's no specific explanation of what's going on.

the_af 4y ago
Do read the novel. It's very explicit about her nature and what she's doing and why. Whether this explicitness is something good or bad is up to you, but I guarantee the novel is not confusing, just very bleak.
- arlcode 4y ago
  You did not lie. I just read half of it and for some reason it resonated more with me than usual. Thank you for the recommendation. I found the "it's just a regular job" setting very startling. Bleak indeed.
three_seagrass 4y ago
As someone who hasn't read the book but watched the movie, here's my best take (spoilers if you haven't watched it): The main character is from an alien hive race that runs a lot like ants, with workers (main char) and drones (motorcycle man). They are on Earth trying to harvest humans for their skin, but also their meat for research purposes or something, i dunno. Something about being in close proximity to and interacting with humans causes the workers to eventually catch feelings, and need to be replaced. The replacement workers don't care - they're just ants - right up until they catch feelings themselves and the drones have to fetch them for replacement. Hence you watch one worker with her lifecycle on Earth, where she experiences all the good and bad parts of being human.
- the_af 4y ago
  Interesting. Haven't watched the movie but your description matches the synopsis and clips I have seen. The novel is different, though it hits some of the same notes. Here's the gist of it, and be warned these are SPOILERS: . . . . . . SPOILERS The main character is indeed an alien. She's a non-humanoid alien, hinted at to be a quadruped somewhat similar to a dog/wolf in her home planet. It turns out that humans are a delicacy to her race, harvested for their flesh. This is a low-scale operation (in order not to alert the humans), and for this they need a lure: she undergoes irreversible surgery to turn her into something that looks like a human girl with big breasts (on close inspection, there are some signs she's a flawed imitation, but most victims don't notice until too late). She finds her human form bizarre and painful, and cannot connect either with other workers at the human meatpacking plant (they remain alien-shaped) or with humans (until very late in the novel she considers humans as barely more than cattle, incapable of real feelings). She is an outcast in her own society, very low-class -- she cannot, for example, "pay" for the human delicacy she helps harvest; it's not for the lower classes -- and this job was an alternative to dying young in some kind of high-risk mining job, reserved for the lower classes of her race. She cannot ever recover her alien form and cannot connect with anyone; she finds the planet Earth beautiful, but not the humans that inhabit it. In the end, her situation is hopeless and she dies, which is a sort of release.

jamesgreenleaf 4y ago

If you liked "Under the Skin", you should watch "Vivarium". Once was enough for me. I never want to see either of them again.