‘Slash/Back’ Review: ‘Attack the Block’ Meets ‘The Thing’ as Inuit Teens Save the World
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film CriticIn “Slash/Back,” something sinister from outer space lands a stone’s throw from the Arctic Circle, and humanity’s first line of defense proves to be a group of Inuit girls armed with nothing but their wits and a bunch of traditional hunting and fishing tools.
In most low-budget alien-invasion movies, the heroes/victims are fairly generic, whereas the extra-terrestrial threat is what draws the crowd.
But Native helmer Nyla Innuksuk (who co-wrote with Ryan Cavan) turns that equation inside-out, making this spunky band of save-the-world teens the main reason to see her movie — although the novel far-north location and reasonably fresh monster effects don’t hurt.Innuksuk shot her debut in and around Pangnirtung, a tiny fishing community in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, where the sun never sets.
Surrounded by snowy tundra, this gorgeous, remote location looks out on distant mountains, suggesting a less-intense version of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” during an early scene, when a tentacle lashes out from a smoking hole in the ice, killing an American geologist.
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