Why home-invasion movie “No One Will Save You” has lots of aliens but no dialogue

In No One Will Save You, a home invasion movie with a twist, Kaitlyn Dever from Justified and Booksmart plays a character named Brynn, who is forced to deal with some unwelcome visitors while living alone in the remote house where she grew up. "Very shortly into the movie, aliens walk into her front door trying to abduct her, and she says, 'No, thank you,'" says writer-director Brian Duffield, whose film premieres on Hulu this Friday.

The resulting movie is half science-fiction-action film as Brynn defends herself from extraterrestrial attackers, and half character study as the audience slowly discovers the reason for Brynn's hermitic existence. As an added element, there's no dialogue. The tension and drama builds through a very physical performance by Dever.

If you're thinking, that sounds as if two wildly different scripts have been smushed together, then Duffield is not in a position to argue. "I had this idea for the character of Brynn. I knew all of that backstory and the life she lived, and I didn't really know what to do with it," the filmmaker explains to EW. "Then I had the idea of an alien movie. I got really into this idea that these invasions, these disasters happen to everybody, no matter what's going on in their life. In my brain, [the two plots] made sense together. Having someone barely equipped to deal with people [and] having to engage with this threat felt like a very fresh way into that story."

Ultimately, Duffield continues with a laugh, "It was two different Final Draft documents that slowly became one."

Sam Lothridge/20th Century Studios Kaitlyn Dever in 'No One Will Save You'

While Brynn can speak, and does at times interact with other people, No One Will Save You is an essentially dialogue-free film. Duffield explains that he came up with the idea of the movie being speech-less pretty late in the game. "I knew there was a scene where Kaitlyn was going to try to get help at a police station," he recalls. "I wrote that scene and subsequent scenes of Brynn having a breakdown because no one would help her. Then I realized, I don't think she's talked in this movie yet. And sure enough she had not."

Duffield decided to make Brynn a literally voiceless presence, which he found surprisingly easy to do. "It was a character thing where this person really wants a community and doesn't think she's deserving of one. It felt like that device just amplified her character," he continues. "Most of the movie there's not really a good reason for her to talk because she's trying so hard to not make a sound. She's not going to say, 'It's an alien in my house!' Also, when you have Kaitlyn Dever, she doesn't need to say anything. She can monologue with her eyes in a really impressive way."

Duffield doesn't recall discussing his decision to not have Brynn speak with executives at 20th Century Studios, the film's financiers, which he finds comical in hindsight. "We talked endlessly about many, many things on the movie, but that was always one where everyone was kind of like, 'Yeah, it's fun!'"

Sam Lothridge/20th Century Studios Kaitlyn Dever in 'No One Will Save You'

The movie's aliens are "Greys," the thin, big-headed extraterrestrials most often seen in films, TV shows, and, some would claim, real life. The film's visitors were digitally created in postproduction, a process the director found stressful. "When we would show people an early cut, it's hard to get reactions when [the alien] is a guy in a leotard," he says. "That part of it I found challenging, where you're just like, I hope, in nine months, when these shots are cooked, it will be cool and make sense."

Duffield got an early career break — or so it seemed — when his western script Jane Got a Gun appeared on the Black List in 2011, subsequently attracting We Need to Talk About Kevin director Lynne Ramsay and a cast which included Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender. The production became an infamous disaster with Ramsay and Fassbender departing the movie, which eventually slunk into theaters in 2015. Today, Duffield reveals that the experience did at least help get in the right frame of mind when the screenwriter signed on to write the same year's Lionsgate-produced YA sequel Insurgent.

"My first production was a very problematic and public disaster," he says. "I was kind like, well, maybe I should never write again. I was so depressed about what a debacle that was. Lionsgate called my reps and asked me to go meet on Insurgent. Reading the book, I [felt] just like Shailene Woodley's character, because that whole book is about her struggling with what happened in the previous book. Lionsgate were like, this poor bastard, because they could read about Jane Got a Gun in Variety every day, but also they were like, he really gets it."

Sam Lothridge/20th Century Studios Brian Duffield and Kaitlyn Dever on the set of 'No One Will Save You'

After writing horror movie The Babysitter and cowriting the Kristen Stewart-starring aquatic terror tale Underwater, Duffield made his directorial debut with 2020's Spontaneous, which concerned a class of high school students who are put in quarantine after they start to gorily explode. Although the film was well reviewed, Spontaneous did not reach a wide audience, partly because of being released during the pandemic and partly because of issues with production company Awesomeness Films, which was folded into Paramount shortly before the movie came out.

"But then I feel like the movie's meaning changed so dramatically because of Covid," Duffield adds. "I'm very proud that exists. The people that found it, I think it really was like a very bloody balm for them in that moment."

So, having tackled exploding teenagers and house-invading aliens, what's next for the filmmaker? "I have no idea," he says. "Part of it's because we're striking right now, there's nothing that's geared up. I'm just as curious about that as anyone else!"

No One Will Save You premieres on Hulu Sept. 22.

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