by Evie Gentry

In 2023, audiences sat in the theater as they first witnessed a desperate, pregnant young mother get thrown across the insides of a blood-stained, desolate cargo container. Filmed almost entirely from the insides of this container floating in the middle of the ocean, the film gave a glimpse in to the protagonist Mia’s attempt to stay alive with also being in the pains of childbirth. The creators of The Paramedic did indeed release another Spanish horror film that gave an interesting twist to the traditional trope of being trapped in an object with no obvious means of escape, adding to that element the fact that said object is also bopping up and down in the endless vast ocean. Nowhere was something that gave me both confusion yet fire in my heart as both a writer and a woman and is a movie I will only watch once.

Dystopian literature has always been something that has intrigued audiences throughout the course of time, whether it be George Orwell’s 1984 or the more recent works of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.What dystopian horror does in contrast to other genres of horror is display important themes and realities of society that cause one to first avert their eyes, but then slowly come to the realization that they need to keep them pried open to fully grasp the truth and to be sure and not repeat that same mistake. The film Nowhere begins with Mia, the protagonist, experiencing the demolishment of her hometown by a totalitarian government and then being herded into a cargo container. The false promises of the totalitarian regime of a new land, a new place where there would be no hardship, persuaded man and woman alike to step inside the container, shaking with fear but blindly believing the grinning smiles of the men in government uniform that this new “utopia” would finally give them peace. At just a startling 20 minutes into the film, we the audience look away in disbelief as the uniformed men shoot the innocent people trapped inside the container, sending them in to the eternal arms of death as people were mowed down right and left from the gunshots. Pregnant Mia manages to climb up into a cranny in the container and shakes with terror as she keeps her hand over her mouth to prevent the uniformed men from hearing her screams. She manages to keep hidden, and when the bodies had been cleared out of the container the men shut and seal the doors as the container is lifted on to an ocean freight. The thought of utopia is far from Mia’s mind as the container tips off the freight during a violent storm, and she is left to fight for her and her unborn child’s survival as she is alone in the silent mighty ocean, with only the increasing labor contractions to keep her mind occupied from the certainty of death.

The element of survival is something that courses through humanity’s veins, a gift that is part of our biology and something that we both consciously and unconsciously fight for. Some horror films follow the same lines as Nowhere in terms of displaying a young protagonist who fights to keep themselves alive amidst the impeding horror of a monster lurking behind the corner and pursuing them. What this film does differently than other survivalist horrors is that it displays the realness and rawness of not fighting against a flesh and blood monster, but against nature herself. Mia struggles to maintain her own declining health from dehydration, hunger, and exhaustion while also being nine months pregnant and using her resources around her to try and get by while food is running out and she gets closer to delivering her child. Nature cannot be tamed nor beaten, and when it asserts dominance all that one can do is simply scream in silence while trying to run the opposite direction. It creates a sense of impending dread that is more visceral than a monster chasing you through a dark corridor: nature is the monster itself, calm one day and then violently evil the next. The film portrays this intense struggle of survival and does not shy away from gory details, the camera never moving when Mia grasps on to the side of the belly of the floating container as it fills up with dark water and she helplessly feels her child being delivered under its murky depths. I couldn’t help but look away in nervousness when these intense aspects of the survival horror genre were so explicitly yet intricately done; I have not seen another horror film quite to that level of detail when the protagonist stands beneath nature and holds up their fist in rage. 

On the side of the same coin, these intense elements of survival tactics that Mia demonstrates as she tries to keep her and her newborn baby alive can come across as almost super-human if you look closely enough. While the totalitarian government’s reign is never thoroughly shown nor touched upon during the entirety of the film, as a member of the audience I assumed that she already had survived a great deal and therefore developed a gritty personality. While I perceived this specific personality type as being a key component to the survival horror theme of the film, there were certain moments that I thought how could she do that? Is that even possible? Specifically, I was left scratching my chin in a slight state of confusion when, during one of the many violent ocean storms present in the film, the container begins to fill with water and capsize and Mia dives through the water and manages to save her baby and stop the container from sinking completely all apparently within a flash of a second. It was scenes such as these that took away from the realness of being a helpless human thrashed around by nature that I thought the film originally displayed very well. 

Despite the film’s shortcoming with giving the protagonist borderline super-human survival instincts, my favorite element of the film is how the power of motherhood is given emphasis and is one of the key factors that keeps Mia alive. One scene in particular sticks with me to this day after watching the film; I have never seen a more emotionally intense birth scene than the one that was depicted in Nowhere. As Mia panics while her water breaks, she begins to see water seeping through a small leak in the container and screams with both labor pains and fear as the dark water rises up to her neck. Trying to keep her head above water, she manages to pull herself up just in time to deliver her child beneath the murky depths of the violent, crashing waves.  Perhaps it was the intense detail to her emotions of both fear and determination, or the use of lighting that seems to illuminate her out as she bops up and down in the dark water. This scene alone stood out as the most powerful to me in the entire film, and it was this aspect of being a new mother that drove Mia to keep herself and her baby alive as she tried to find a solution, no matter how minuscule the chance may be. With this scene alone the film manages to portray the raw beauty of being a mother; with the intense emotions swimming like the dark, violent water around Mia as she looks at her child with both awe and fear but holds her close and promises that she will do everything she can to keep her safe because of her love for her. After watching the film, I felt a budding fire within my own heart as a woman who desires one day to have her own children; this film beautifully portrays the beauty and intensity of motherhood, how visceral and powerful it really is. 

Nowhere is a film I will only watch once. Dystopian horror is not the same when you watch it multiple times in a row, and it loses its first initial impact on the audience when you watch it several times knowing how it ends. This film also causes one to contemplate what they just witnessed; and that aspect alone is why the film creeps up to the top of my list of survival horror films I have sat through. Long after the film credits rolled, I still ponder the central theme of motherhood, the beauty and complexity of it that encompass so many different threads all woven together in intricacy. A true survival horror film, it creates a sense of dread and nervousness in the audience as the protagonist battles against nature herself. Yet still, I wish that the creators would dial back on the almost super-human element of survival instincts that Mia seems to possess. I believe if they make her even more relatable in terms of being confused as to what to do when presented with the elements needed to survive, the scare factor would dial up to level 10. I recommend you become a member of the audience for this film and experience the viscerally it has to offer for yourself, even if it does fall short in some areas.