I’ve always believed that if aliens actually do exist, there’s no way they’re going to be friendly toward humans, considering how quickly we destroy entire civilizations of our own. So, what’s the other option for our friends from space other than controlling us or killing us? It only makes sense. Writer-director Peter Stylianou plays with this idea of unfriendly aliens who want to possess some of us and use their bodies to kill the rest, and “The Nice Ones” is actually a pretty smart title for such a fun horror flick. What I love most about this film is how the characters behave when faced with genuinely life threatening situations. Every death feels realistic, and I could genuinely picture myself in that room with them, reacting in much the same way. We never see the aliens but we do see them manipulating with the humans, which amps up the horror more without stating the obvious. “The Nice Ones” completely justifies its runtime, and it’s definitely one of the better horrors I’ve had the privilege to watch this year.
What happens in the film?
An old guy named Hunter looks up at the sky and starts smiling, while his wife, Martha, is watching what I’m guessing is Plan 9 from Outer Space. Martha’s TV starts to buzz while Hunter walks up to her with his rifle, and he smiles at his wife before shooting her right in the head. Cut to a few days later, Kate and Dale, a couple, are travelling to a countryside retreat to meet up with Dale’s friend group from university. When Kate stops by the side of the road to take a leak, she hears a strange noise. A few moments later, she spots a bright object in the sky that looks suspiciously like a UFO, beaming a light downwards before zooming away and disappearing. When Kate tells Dale about it, he corrects her by saying UFOs are now called UAPs, short for unidentified aerial phenomenon. But that’s all Dale cares about, as he doesn’t really take long before dismissing Kate. The couple finally reach the Victorian style Airbnb after a six hours long drive, and it’s safe to say that Kate isn’t exactly the popular kid among Dale’s friends. Tom and Shelly are probably the nicest people here, and Shelly gets along with Kate really well. Then there’s Ben and Jay, almost a couple but Jay refuses to come out of the closet despite the fact that he’s been staying with Ben for years. But the most despicable one in this group is Jade, Danny’s girlfriend whom he met in an acting class. Jade immediately asks Dale why he is dating Kate, despite being his therapist, and honestly, that question isn’t unfair. Dale has no good answer for that, and soon Shelly takes Kate away to talk crap about Jade. After a while, Kate comes across a news report about partial power outages across Europe. It doesn’t seem like much at first, but by the end, everything starts to make sense.
Why is Shelly acting strange?
Kate overhears the rest of the group discussing her past, where Jay is showing them an old video of her. Before she and Dale started dating, Kate was with another guy, and one day, she picked up a knife to defend herself and claimed that her boyfriend is not human. In the video, Kate claims that his eyes changed, and while Jade and the others are making fun of her, Shelly tells them that the guy used to emotionally abuse Kate. Jay also tells the group about how Kate was admitted to a mental hospital for a long time, and Kate puts an end to this discussion by showing up in front of them, informing them that dinner’s ready. During the dinner, Dale tries to include Kate into the conversation, so he mentions how she apparently saw a UFO on the way, which only gives the others another thing to laugh about. Jay even tells Kate that since she’s on meds, seeing flashing lights might just be a side effect. Kate feels horrible about herself, but Dale couldn’t care less that he just turned his girlfriend into a joke in front of his friends. Shelly steps outside to enjoy a glass of champagne by herself, and as she looks up at the beautiful starry sky, the alien orb appears and shoots a beam of light directly at her. When Kate goes out to talk to Shelly, she’s taken aback by her weird behaviour. Shelly says that a beautiful storm is coming, and that ‘they’ are excited to show it to her. Kate also notices that Shelly has dropped her glass, and when they return to the dinner table, she confronts Shelly about the weird statement she gave outside. Instead of answering Kate, Shelly gives her a creepy look, and her eyes start glowing with a bright white light. Kate freaks out and runs away, and Dale chases after her. While Dale tries to talk to her, you can see he’s just being condescending, and Kate doesn’t like that behaviour, understandably. After a while, Dale tells his friends that he might’ve made a mistake by taking Kate off the meds, and he says Kate suffers from Capgras delusion, where the patient believes someone close to them has been replaced by an impostor. But it doesn’t take long before everyone in the group finds Shelly acting strange, talking about how there’ll be love and light, and none of them should be afraid. Tom feels that Jay might’ve spiked Shelly’s drink, and Jay gets real offended by this accusation. Dale claims that Kate’s delusion might be contagious and Shelly might’ve been affected by that, a bum theory if you ask me. When Tom finally approaches Shelly to ask if she’s alright, she tells him that she was going to wait until he fell asleep before killing him, and then stabs him right after saying this. The others are left in disbelief at what they’ve just witnessed, and Dale wastes no time knocking Shelly out with a blow to the head.
Who kills Ben?
The internet already wasn’t working right after the aliens possessed Shelly, and now the phones have no reception either, not even emergency services. Ben declares that Tom is dead, so Dale ties Shelly up to a chair. Kate claims that the lights in the sky are shutting their communications down, but of course nobody believes her theory, which is bang on. Jay cannot handle this mess so he runs away to do a load of coke and drinking like there’s no tomorrow. He goes outside to throw up, looks up at the sky, and I think you can guess what happens to anyone who looks at the sky in this film. The power of the house also goes out, and the group decides it’s best if they leave immediately to get help. Dale manages to calm Kate down, and they start packing up. Danny is guilt tripping over not saving Tom, and Jade is done with him, the poor girl just wants to get the hell out instead of getting trauma dumped. Meanwhile, Jay and Ben are alone in the kitchen, and seeing Jay gulp champagne like water, Ben gets a bit concerned. Before you know it, Jay has a corkscrew in his hand, and he jams it into Ben’s head. Jay’s eyes light up as he’s killing his lover, and nobody else knows that Ben is also a threat now. Possessed Jay also frees Shelly, and the other two couples soon spot both freaks downstairs, standing there with their eyes glowing.
How does Kate kill Hunter?
Dale and Danny take their girlfriends into their respective rooms and lock themselves up inside, and Dale decides to jump out of the window to get to the car while Kate hides in the washroom. Shelly manages to break into the room, and seeing Dale limp to the car, she uses some sort of telepathic communication to send Jay after him. Poor Dale has no option but to run over Jay, and even though he turned evil, it crushes Dale to do this to his friend. Meanwhile, Shelly sees Jay getting neutralised through the window, and Danny sneaks up on her to push her out the window. But before Danny, Kate, and Jade make it to the car, Shelly breaks into it, and all of them have to run away on foot. Dale and Kate manage to find a house after making it through the woods, and Kate calls Dale out for always dismissing her using the power he has over her. When they knock on the door, nobody answers, so Kate finds a back door to get inside. However, she also sees blood splattered all over the living room, and Dale sees that the landline of this house doesn’t work either. The owner of the house is the same guy from the opening scene of the film, who killed his wife. His name is Hunter, and he tries to hunt the intruders while they hide. Just when Hunter and his rifle almost finds Kate, Danny and Jade knock on his door. Hunter hides his rifle before he answers the door, and he tries to manipulate Danny to come inside. Jade is a bit suspicious for good reasons, so she asks Hunter to call the cops for them. Kate sees Hunter slowly reaching for the gun, so she screams and warns Danny and Jade to run away. While Jade manages to escape, Hunter blows Danny’s head off. Hunter then shoots Dale as well, and just when he’s about to do the same to Kate, she says that she’s ready to meet his family and join them. Hearing this, Hunter immediately puts his gun down and gets excited. He drags poor Kate through the staircase to show him his family, which includes his dead son, daughter, and wife. But Hunter soon realises that Kate is playing, and he asks her to lose the mask. Just like Shelly, Hunter tells Kate that it’s about time she gives up the darkness and embraces light. Kate gives up, knowing that there’s no surviving this, but Dale isn’t dead yet, and he manages to attack Hunter from behind. While the two men grapple, Kate grabs a knife and stabs Hunter a dozen times until he’s dead. After he’s dead, Kate grabs Hunter’s car keys, and the two of them finally have a chance of survival.
Is Kate dead or alive?
After Kate and Dale hit the road, Jade shows up in front of the car. Kate is reluctant to open the door, as she notices Jade’s behaviour and she’s much sweeter than she usually is. We can’t rule out the possibility of Jade behaving decently because her life is in danger, but Kate is also not wrong to trust somebody who might already be possessed. Dale insists that they should help Jade, and even when Kate asks him to choose between her or Jade, Dale the jerk decides to help Jade instead. Turns out, Kate wasn’t wrong, and Jade starts talking like the other possessed people before her eyes start to shine. Kate tries to grab the gun, but Jade reaches for it as well, and Kate has no choice but to slam the car against a tree. Jade is out of the windshield, and Kate somehow makes it out of the car. But Shelly is already waiting for her outside, so Kate quickly grabs the gun. As the two women are locked in a face-off, the alien orb hovers right above them, but Kate declares that she doesn’t need to let go of her darkness, as it’s her darkness, and she’s earned it. I really loved this line because it resonates with me on such a personal level. Sometimes, the things that haunt us become such a big part of who we are, that letting go of them feels like letting go of a part of ourselves. Kate shoots Shelly, and the orb flies away in a flash. One would normally think this nightmare would be over after everything Kate’s been through tonight, but just as she starts the car again, Dale turns out to be possessed by the aliens. The camera then pans out to reveal the nearby city where the alien orb is beaming light down in multiple places, making it clear that this invasion is happening on a much larger scale than we initially thought.
