Europa Report is 2013 sci-fi thriller about An international crew of astronauts undertakes a privately funded mission to search for life on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon.
Horror films pretty much have the found footage genre in a death grip, thanks mostly to The Blair Witch Project‘s remarkable success that, through the twisted natural Hollywood order of it all, prompted an entire legion of copycats. However, a few filmmakers have taken to finding more innovative ways in using the limited narrative device and one that’s well worth checking out is Sebastián Cordero‘s clever and underrated space odyssey, Europa Report. It’s a smart bit of science fiction that burns its slow fuse with great effect, with not only plenty of chills ups its space suit sleeve but also being one of the most authentic space films ever made. Buckle up, we’re heading to the stars. Or, at least our Solar System.
THE STORY: Told in flashback, we learn through Dr. Unger (Embeth Davidtz), via an on camera interview, the curious flight of the Europa One mission, a privately funded operation to reach the famed Jupiter moon in hopes of discovering what might be an actual source of life beyond Earth. This is staggering stuff and could change everything. On board the vessel are six astronauts, including the ship’s leader, Captain, William Xu (Daniel Wu), the pilot Rosa Dasque (Anamaria Marinca), the chief science officer Daniel Luxembourg (Christian Camargo), a marine biologist, Katya Petrovna (Karolina Wydra), and finally junior engineer James Corrigan (Sharlto Copley) and chief engineer Andrei Blok (Michael Nyqvist). They’re a good crew and look to be the true pioneers the projects needs.
Half a year into the mission though, a massive solar flare completely severed communications, leaving Unger (and the world) able only to speculate on the lives and status of the crew. Now, much later, when it’s understand that contact has been made, classified materials are released and the film shows us what happened, beginning with a tragedy that leaves one of the astronauts dead in a desperate sacrifice to fix the problem. With no other options though, the team pushes on to their target, with another twenty months in blackout, eventually touching down on icy Europa. What they find and what it means changes their lives and possibly everyone’s on Earth.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR: It would be easy to dismiss this very well-made film as two-bit horror, but that’s really over-reaching. While Cordero, and screenwriter Philip Gelatt, certainly know how to generate tension, what really works best is the commitment to reality, even as the story leaks into a bit of fantasy with its discoveries. The vessel and the life these people make aboard the ship are all grounded in actual science and with the movie’s sort of slow-paced ambiguous first half, it almost feels like a documentary or a channel on YouTube featuring a live feed from high orbit (which are great, by the way). It’s no surprise to learn that footage from the International Space Station inspired the production.
It being a found footage film however, it’s naturally a little claustrophobic, a signature of the genre as the limited view from the cameras keep things tight, yet since most of the action takes place in the already tubular confines of the spaceship – which is nothing out of science fiction – it feels justified and earned. Conversations are seen from remote lenses mounted inside the ship and therefore most of the actors are viewed as if through high quality CCTV security footage speaking routine expositional dialogue, which you might think would just about grind this whole thing to a halt, but hold on … Cordero manages to splice it all together in a very convincing and steadily escalating manner that lends a lot of credibility to the action. Mix this with composer Bear McCreary‘s excellent moody score and this is heady stuff.
WHY IT MATTERS: While movies have long made fiction out of science to often very entertaining ends – George Lucas redefined everything about those expectations – there’s something really thrilling about films that embrace authenticity in telling tales of imagination. Recent movies like Alfonso Cuarón‘s acclaimed Gravity, released the same year as Europa Report, are great fun to watch, even with their inaccuracies, simply because they at least strive to feel real. Ruairí Robinson‘s failed The Last Days On Mars, also from 2013, which also follows a mission with unexpected discoveries, tried as well, but got lost in the cheap scares. Europa Report‘s greatest accomplishment is refusing to make the leap into over-the-top visual-effects driven monster-in-the-dark horror, instead being a much more sophisticated thriller, making it a truly cool and somewhat traumatizing (in a movie sort of way) experience.
READ MORE: Review of the Science Fiction Thrill Orbiter 9
THE TALLY: Perhaps some of you watched Daniel Espinosa‘s sci-fi horror film Life (2017) and felt a little cheated, the empty and all too obvious story much too familiar. Well good news, because Eupora Report does it right. Admittedly, fans of louder, toothier sci-fi terrors will want more from their movies, but for those willing to give science and patience a chance, this is a surprisingly haunting and potent film that absolutely won’t disappoint. It’s what to watch. It’s streaming on Netflix right now.