Alpha - Review
- Jack Aling
- Oct 7, 2025
- 1 min read
Updated: Jun 18
If Something Happens to You, It Happens to Me.
Review written by Jack Aling
Alpha is directed by Julia Ducournau and written by Julia Ducournau.
A French body horror drama set against the backdrop of a mysterious bloodborne disease that turns victims to marble. Thirteen-year-old Alpha receives a tattoo at a party, and when it becomes infected, her doctor mother is consumed by paranoid fear. Julia Ducournau's follow-up to Titane.
Less of a spectacle than Raw or Titane, Julia Ducournau's latest feels more personal and intimate while keeping traces of her signature flair.
When Alpha gets an amateur tattoo at a party, it begins a series of events that unravels a troubling story of fear and addiction fuelled by her mother's desperate need to protect those around her. Golshifteh Farahani is incredible as a mother who wants to protect her daughter, played by newcomer Mélissa Boros and shield her from the dependent habits of her brother, played by Tahar Rahim. What transpires is a complex look at trauma and grief - how being unable to let those we love die may stop others from being able to live.
Though there are still elements of the chilling body horror we came to expect (and an unhinged Tame Impala needle drop), Alpha will no doubt be more divisive, but its themes stayed with me longer than any nauseating gore Ducournau has created before.
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