New drama Alpha is a change of tack for French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, who took Cannes by storm with her 2021 auto(mobile)-erotic body horror Titane and made waves with her debut feature Raw, about a teenage cannibal, in 2016.
It's much lighter on the body horror than Titane, which confronts the viewer with a graphic brain surgery scene right off the bat, but stays firmly rooted in the messy, upsetting, tender family dynamics that underpin her previous movie's otherwise outlandish, controversial plot points (car sex, anyone?). That being said, Alpha does open with an unflinching close-up of its titular 13-year-old protagonist (Mélissa Boros), blackout drunk and getting a tattoo at a house party using an unsanitary needle. The camera painstakingly follows the needle's movements in her skin, but that's the last time a squeamish viewer may have to avert their eyes.
