'Ex-Machina,' 'It Follows' breathe life into stale genres.

AuthorCoyle, Jake
PositionLiving

Byline: Jake Coyle

NEW YORK -- Alex Garland has learned a few things in his years as a science-fiction screenwriter: namely, that money doesn't always help.

Garland is now making his directorial debut with the acclaimed science fiction film "Ex-Machina,'' after earlier scripting the influential zombie thriller "28 Days Later'' and seeing his first book, "The Beach,'' turned into the Leonardo DiCaprio adventure. The 2007 Danny Boyle-directed space thriller "Sunshine,'' which Garland wrote, particularly drove home the lesson.

"The thing I really felt about 'Sunshine' almost while we were making it, is that we were spending too much money,'' says Garland. "When you're spending that much money, either consciously or unconsciously, you start to think about recouping. You start to think about the business of film and trying to make it entertaining or trying to adrenalize it at moments when it's the wrong thing to do.''

Garland's "Ex-Machina,'' which opens in some regions April 10, was made for $15 million, not the $50 million it took to make "Sunshine,'' a philosophical journey to the sun that eventually dissolved into more of a monster movie. "Ex-Machina,'' however, holds its trance throughout the tale of a young computer programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) who flies to the remote lair of a tech billionaire (Oscar Isaac), and is introduced to a very realistic artificial intelligence (Alicia Vikander).

"The one thing I do know is that I really, really want creative freedom -- not just for me but the people I'm working with,'' says the British writer-director. "You need to be Christopher Nolan to have creative freedom at that level. That's what, like, two or three people in the world.''

Instead of fighting those odds, a new generation of filmmakers is breathing fresh life into the often over-commercialized genres of sci-fi and horror. A regular diet of big-budget releases have helped stagnate genre thrills by over-relying on visual-effects spectacle ("Jupiter Ascending,'' "After Earth''), while mainstream horror has been overrun by gimmicky shlock (the "Paranormal Activity'' series) and familiar retreads ("I, Frankenstein'').

But many of the most exciting horror and sci-fi films in recent years -- "Under the Skin,'' "The Babadook,'' "Her,'' "Upstream Color,'' the "Black Mirror'' miniseries -- have come from independent filmmakers working with small or even skimpy budgets, who prize creative control in genres where final cut is scarce.

Janet Pierson...

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