DIRECTOR EXCLUSIVE
Parasite Lost
Riz Ahmed is out to thwart an alien invasion in Encounter
Lucian-River Chauhan plays Riz Ahmed’s son.
THE EARTH IS UNDER attack. Alien parasites – transmitted by insects – are possessing an unwitting populace at an alarming rate.
Decorated US marine Malik Khan (Riz Ahmed) is one of the chosen few who know about the invasion, and he may just be humanity’s last hope. His immediate priority, however, is rescuing his two young sons from his ex-wife and new partner, who he believes is probably infected.
That’s the premise behind Encounter, a movie that mixes enemy-within paranoia with family bonding on a road trip across the vast landscapes of the western United States.
“The story already had a nod to Invasion Of The Body Snatchers [by the time I was attached],” explains Michael Pearce, who made his name with his 2017 debut Beast.
“That’s both in terms of people being infected by something they can’t see, and that it’s your fellow man that could be the proverbial alien. I felt like the beginning of the movie needed to confidently embrace that elevated genre realm,” he continues. “That unencumbered a lot of the rest of the story from having to do too much in terms of spectacle –I felt like there was always going to be a danger that big moments could eclipse what the movie was really about, which is effectively a character portrait about this father and his sons. I felt that if the film stated its [sci-fi] claims early on, then we could afford to be more intimate throughout the movie.”