Alex Garland’s new sci-fi film Annihilation, in which Natalie Portman ventures into an environmental disaster zone filled with mutated animals and clinically insane people, is oddly reminiscent of the time I visited Hull.
When the Mars Attacks! actress passed through the wall of a massive washing up bubble to enter the hazardous environment, it immediately reminded of the first (and last) time I ever crossed the border into the East Yorkshire city.
In the film, Portman, and the four competent women accompanying her, discover all sorts of biological phenomenons, like an albino alligator with shark teeth and genetically twisted plant life that crawls up the side of buildings like an urban cancer. My experience of Hull was almost identical to that.
Merely minutes into my visit, I was approached by a variety of clearly deformed, carbon-based life forms. One was almost entirely covered in piss-drenched fur and had a can of Special Brew fused to its paw. Another had six heads, which were all screeching “Jobseeker” in agony.
And just as the characters in Annihilation are picked off one by one by mysterious creatures, so were my family in Hull. My brother was the first to go. Having fallen behind to find a usable public toilet, he was devoured by a pram with teeth. Then my parents, while trying to find a restaurant that wouldn’t give us all mumps, befell a similar fate at the hands of kebab shop owner, who was actually a massive rat.
It could be argued that this masterpiece by the Ex Machina director is actually a parable of self-reflection – a profound exploration of our flawed human nature and the fractal complexity of relationships. But mostly it reminded me of Hull and how much I don’t want to go back to that fucking dump.
Annihilation is available on Netflix March 12.