Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi
Director: Chloe Zhao
Writer: Billy Cruder
Based on the short story "The Screwfly Solution" by Raccoona Sheldon
Cast: Evangeline Lilly, Jeremy Renner, Thomasin McKenzie, Zoe Saldana, Kevin Durand, Teagan Croft, Ali Larter, Diane Guerrero, Meagan Good, Blu Hunt, Lindsey Morgan, Luke Grimes
Plot: The film begins in the early summer in a quiet neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida. Some police patrols find themselves in front of a beautiful house with a well-kept garden. The cops break down the door and find a man silently cleaning various bloodstains with a big smile on his face. Then they discover the massacred bodies of his wife and daughter in the bedrooms.
Anne Alstein (Evangeline Lilly) is a Virginia-based psychologist who works at a center for abused women. After the stressful day, she goes to the bathroom to rinse her face with fresh water and then leaves to go home. At home, her two daughters, Amy (Teagan Croft) and Alexandra (Thomasin McKenzie) are waiting for her and preparing dinner. Anne greets her daughters and then goes to take a shower complimenting her daughters on the look of what they were cooking. Shortly thereafter, Anne's friend, Bella Sartiano (Zoe Saldana), a rather important national epidemiologist, also arrives. The two girls are excited because their father, entomologist Alan Crocker, is returning home after being away for a few months to work in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil to study a type of insect harmful to crops. At one point Alan (Kevin Durand) and colleague Barney (Jeremy Renner) arrive and there is a pleasant meeting between the family. At the end of the dinner, Bella receives a call and is forced to leave quickly with a rather serious face. The woman does not reveal the details and Anne tells her to be careful. So does Barney who reveals an affectionate interest in her. Soon after, Barney also leaves saying that he must retrieve his cats from his cousin as they haven't seen him for a long time. Meanwhile, Amy and Alexandra were on the couch quietly watching the latest film with Sally Wormer (Ali Larter), one of the most famous actresses in the world, and Amy kept repeating that she was her favorite actress. Alexandra, on the other hand, seemed a little more distracted as she was texting her near-boyfriend Steve. Their parents, on the other hand, after clearing the table went to the other room to watch the final of Roland Garros, where WTA world number 1, Allison Wall (Lindsey Morgan) was playing against an Asian opponent. In fact, Sally was a good talent at a youth level but had had to leave tennis due to a bad injury but still enjoyed watching some important games if she had the chance. During the match there were comments from Alan to the handsome player which sparked a playful jealousy from Anne. In the end the two share a long kiss. Thus, during the night, Alan and Anne have wild sex after six months apart, causing hilarity in their daughters who heard everything through the walls.
Meanwhile, the next morning, Bella Sartiano arrives in Jacksonville to find a completely armored and isolated city and discovers that the day before there has been a very high number of femicides. She struggles to get a permit to interview an army soldier, William Holland (Luke Grimes) who is locked up in prison because he savagely killed a stripper in a nightclub the night before. Bella discovers that aggression is linked to sexual arousal and many men use religious reasons to justify the murders. Furthermore, the man reveals that a new religious movement is spreading as a kind of epidemic along with the murders called "Children of Adam", who believe that women are bad, that the Garden of Eden was a paradise before women. were introduced to bring temptation and that God is telling them to get rid of all women. Bella in a moment of distraction gets too close to the cage and the man tries to grab her by the blouse through the bars of the cell where he is locked up but manages to free himself by giving him a violent elbow on the nose that makes him bleed. When the woman leaves, the man starts laughing hysterically and insulting the woman. Then the woman goes to the bathroom to wash her face after the scare and warns her friend Barney and tells him what she found. The two conclude that this expanding male madness appears to have a biological cause and that the killers believe it to be a natural instinct and have constructed elaborate misogynistic rationalizations for it. Bella leaves the bathroom and discovers that this male madness is spreading to other nearby towns and decides to leave Jacksonville. On his way out he witnesses the murder of a middle-aged lady by a young boy, for no apparent reason. Bella backs up and exits the emergency exit, pretending not to be seen by anyone. The woman quickly reaches the car but the car doesn't seem to work. The woman swears and punches the wheel. She quickly gets out and opens the hood to find that the engine has been tampered with. The woman gets into the car for a moment to take the cell phone that has fallen on the seat to warn someone who could go and help her. Suddenly a group of policemen quickly arrive there and Bella locks herself in the car. After hitting the car, they pour gasoline on the car and try to set it on fire. Bella screams and thinks about how to get out of that situation. Suddenly a young policewoman shoots her colleagues killing three. Bella manages to escape just in time as the surviving infected male police officers try to chase the two women. The two hide behind a dumpster to find out what to do. The policewoman says she is Officer Natalia Herrera (Diane Guerrero) and gives Bella a gun and quickly explains how to use it. At that moment, however, a gunshot wound hit Natalia in the shoulder. The two start shooting, killing the last policemen who were chasing them. Meanwhile, from a window of the town hall, a voice that seems female says to enter and that aid is arriving. The two walk in and close the door and sit down as the female voice from the bathroom says she would arrive immediately. Meanwhile, Natalia cleverly wraps the wound on her shoulder as Bella thanks her for saving her and Natalia nods saying it's her duty. Then Natalia also enters the bathroom to wash off the blood and is attacked by surprise by the mayor who had pretended to be a woman to lure them there using a mobile application that modifies the voice. After a brief struggle he sticks a syringe in her neck and Natalia falls to the ground. Bella hears strange noises inside the bathroom and after calling Natalia without receiving an answer she starts grabbing the gun. Then the man comes out of the bathroom with a psycho face making nonsense talk and attacks Bella too. She tries to shoot but unfortunately her gun has run out of bullets. The woman escapes through the town hall to find the bodies of some women. Eventually the man manages to reach Bella and kills her first with a stab in the belly and then slitting her throat. Afterwards, Natalia wakes up a little dazed and tied up. Around her a group of other infected policemen are singing a song. Next to her are the other female police officers who have been killed. Then a stab hits her in the stomach as the background song continues becoming more and more joyful. Then one by one each policeman pass the knife to each other giving Natalia a stab. Poor Natalia dies slowly wishing death to all of them with her last words.
Meanwhile, Barney and Alan are taken away from their homes and travel to Washington D.C. to assess whether the cause of the condition is natural or bioterrorism. They are also warned of Bella Sartiano's death, which creates a lot of sadness in Barney and they seem to guess that this sort of epidemic is similar to the insect that was causing problems in Brazil. The two say that to remedy the problem they had reduced the population with an enzyme and it seems that the only way to avoid the spread of the epidemic is chemical castration, with the alternative of actual castration. Meanwhile, as the hours go by, the epidemic seems to be spreading more and more and seems to reach further and further north of the United States, where Alan's family lives. Barney takes the chemical castration but Alan refuses, saying he must reach the family and bring them to safety saying that in the meantime he will be fine using the pills. Before going to the airport, the man goes to a small restaurant and meets Vivian (Blu Hunt), a kind and helpful waitress. Before leaving, Alan warns the girl to be careful. Meanwhile, Anne and her daughters are witnessing the voluntary run-over of two women who were crossing the street by a guy driving a Ferrari and are starting to fear. After traveling by plane, Alan quickly arrives home. After pampering his wife, they end up in bed and he starts stripping her a bit violently until he starts slapping her and eventually kills her with many stab wounds. Then he does the same with his daughters who were sleeping. Alan wakes up with a start and realizes it was a nightmare, in fact he was still on the plane. This dream creates an obvious stir in Alan and he begins to look around. There seems to be unrest on the plane. A moment later two women are killed and he realizes sadly that probably every man on the plane is infected, including himself. At this point he phones his wife and daughters to greet them and explain the situation by telling them to move further north and bring a gun, and has his wife promise that if they met again she would have to shoot him. Then they greet each other with tears in their eyes.
At this point the film shows some violent acts. Allison Wall is playing a game in a charity tournament in the northern United States until a fan suddenly pulls out a gun and shoots him in the head and kills him instantly. Then the scene shifts to a small restaurant where Vivian is the waitress. The restaurant is close to closing time and Vivian has decided that given the worsening of the epidemic, this would be her last day there. After taking the order of a couple of friends, the woman enters the kitchen and is attacked by the chef and another cook. The girl tries to defend herself and throws a jar of hot pepper over the eyes of one of the two, blinding him momentarily but the other pours a pot of boiling water on her legs. Despite the burns she manages to escape and tries to ask for help but is killed by one of the two men she has just collected the order from. Subsequently, the film quickly shows other images of mass femicide.
Everything collapsed in a few months and arrived in early October. Anne, Amy and Alexandra continued their trip to Canada, as suggested by their father. The weather begins to get colder and the three women warm up as best they can. During the trip they met other women with whom they created a small nomadic community. Among these women was Sally Wormer, Amy's favorite actress. However, Sally now has a deep scar on her face caused by the assault of a cameraman while filming her latest film in the first weeks of the outbreak. Another is the irascible Gloria (Meagan Good), a former inmate who managed to boldly escape when the epidemic hit her prison and had to witness unspeakable torture for the other inmates. Amy was also delighted to have met her idol Sally Wormer despite the bad times and to have spent a lot of time with her to hear anecdotes about Sally's acting career. Anne and her daughters would like to go to Barney's shack in Ontario. During the trip Anne and Alexandra argue for a futile reason and the girl moves away from her mother who follows her a short distance away while Amy watches the scene amused and stays with the other women. Anne manages to catch up with her daughter after a while, but she faces a shocking vision. Alan, her husband, is hugging her daughter. The woman's first thought is to run to him but then she stops. The attitude is that of the usual Alan, he tells her that he is fine and that he hasn't had any problems even though the camera shows dried blood on his jeans and shoes. Anne, unsure of the situation, tries to convince her daughter to return to her. In fact, a moment later he changes his attitude and tries to sexually attack Alexandra until Anne shoots him in the leg. The man falls for a moment, inveighing against his wife and then gets up with difficulty. At Alan's growing insistence, the two women run away. Meanwhile, Amy, who had heard the shot, escaped the surveillance of the other women and began looking for her worried mother and sister. At one point he finds himself in front of his father who is bandaging his leg. He welcomes his daughter by congratulating her on growing up and becoming a splendor and kindly tells her to come and help him. Amy, not understanding the situation, approaches her father and is strangled while Anne arrives too late to save her by finding her dead daughter on the ground. Anne screams and immediately shoots Alan in the head killing him. After burying the girl, the group of women continue their journey and arrive at the hut in search of supplies and find Barney.
Barney looks aged, has an unkempt beard and walks wearily. He greets Anne with a smile and then stands in a corner raising his hands in peace. Anne responds with a hesitant smile. The man is questioned by Gloria and Anne. The man is apparently healthy and tells of the castration he had done that kept his impulses in check. She then reveals to Anne that she has cancer and probably has little life ahead of her. During the speech, the woman tells about the death of her daughter. Barney regrets that it wasn't her husband's fault, he could no longer resist the impulses. Barney then, looking around, realizes that many of the women have flu symptoms due to the climate and nomadic life, including Alexandra. It reveals that there is a small hospital a little further north, but it could be very dangerous. The group of women arrives at the hospital after a few hours of walking. The hospital seems deserted and the group of women starts looking for medicine. During the search Anne finds the corpses, now in an advanced state of decay of doctors and nurses, and orders all the women to leave. Gloria had strayed from the group to retrieve drugs that could be used as drugs and was attacked by a man behind her who cut her throat. When they leave, they notice that Gloria is missing but are soon attacked by a group of doctors and other medical personnel. Sally sacrifices herself to save Anne and Alexandra, who are the only survivors in the end, along with Barney who, very in pain with cancer, was waiting for them outside the hospital next to an abandoned police car. Barney also listens to a radio conversation indicating that the world's female population has nearly been wiped out. A few days later Barney dies peacefully after telling the two women to keep running and never stop as they are probably some of the surviving women. The two women dig a kind of grave in a quiet place and give their last friend a last farewell. Meanwhile, in the following days, mother and daughter are chased by a host of men who practically chase them. The two women see people looking for them in every situation. Anne then hugs her daughter and hides her in a kind of trap door she found by chance, hidden in the vegetation. She manages to attract everyone's attention and to be followed by the whole pack of men who take them away from that area. At one point, however, she is submerged and killed.
After a beginning in which the girl is scared and doesn't know what to do, she decides to react. While preparing for the journey on her own, Alexandra discovers the source of the outbreak. During the night he sees an incredible thing, an extraterrestrial ship in the sky that suddenly lights up. Alexandra gasps. The culprits are luminous aliens formed from light, who use alien technology to create the femicide epidemic to exterminate the human race. Alexandra witnesses the killing of all nearby men with some sort of laser, ostensibly to get some of their brain matter, and in the meantime she escapes into the woods without looking back. After running in the woods for hours, he arrives at an old abandoned shack camouflaged in the vegetation. The girl enters slowly. Inside, find food and other useful items. Finally it also finds two little girls, probably twins, hiding in a corner behind a blanket hugging each other in fright. Alexandra greets them with a smile.
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