The Andromeda Strain isn’t talked about a lot these days, and it’s beginning to feel like a bit of a forgotten gem. And the film’s final, ominous moments only drive those themes home. As we emerge from 2020, The Andromeda Strain’s warnings about society’s struggle with handling dangerous biological developments on a mass scale remain as relevant and compelling as ever. The film isn’t an empty exercise in tension and paranoia. As a result, the film feels more akin to some of Wise’s darker outings as a director - especially the 1963 horror classic The Haunting. While Wise remains highly capable of communicating scale throughout the film, it’s his ability to create tension and atmosphere that’s most notable in The Andromeda Strain.

Alex Garland’s Annihilation achieved a similar effect, and that thematic richness is a large part of what makes The Andromeda Strain so effective.ĭirector Robert Wise may be most well-known for directing sweeping Hollywood musicals like The Sound of Music and West Side Story, but he’s tapping into a different kind of skillset in The Andromeda Strain. Watching The Andromeda Strain, you begin to feel like the film’s characters are fighting an uphill battle, not against alien invaders but against nature itself.

While it doesn’t ever depict any of the kind of giant Lovecraftian enemies typically associated with cosmic horror, it does tap into the feeling of helplessness that’s integral to that genre. In that sense, The Andromeda Strain sometimes feels more like a cosmic horror film than it does an alien invasion thriller. That feeling of claustrophobia also helps to heighten the film’s unshakable sense of dread, which escalates as its central team of scientists learn about the alien organism. The film takes place primarily within the confines of a sealed-off underground facility - one designed to be destroyed the moment it looks like the alien pathogen might escape.īy keeping its locations limited, The Andromeda Strain achieves a claustrophobic effect that only grows more effective as the film continues. Based on a 1969 novel of the same name by sci-fi icon Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain focuses on efforts by a group of scientists to contain and understand a dangerous extraterrestrial organism that’s made its way to Earth.

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