If the embed won’t play, the trailer is also here on YouTube.
Netflix has released the first full trailer for Allen, the Queensland-set alien reunion from Ludo Studio, the Brisbane outfit best known for Bluey. It follows a short teaser earlier this month and lands a little over a fortnight before the film itself arrives on Netflix on 12th November. A fresh poster and five new images came along with it, which is a good deal of ceremony for a story about someone who never got a proper goodbye.
The set-up is simple enough to be pitched on the back of a bus ticket. As a boy in Queensland, Petey made friends with an alien called Allen, who then vanished without a word. Twenty years on, Allen has turned up again, and Netflix’s logline helpfully advises Petey to be careful what he wishes for. It seems Allen is carrying a secret big enough to change the world, which means Petey will have to grow up rather faster than he had planned. The new images show the pair facing each other on a moonlit beach and, on a gentler note, together at a brightly lit fairground.
Think of it as E.T. viewed from the forest clearing. Spielberg’s alien went home to a swelling John Williams score and nobody thought to ask how the kid got on afterwards. Allen, at least going by the logline, is interested in the answer. Then there is the title, which sits a single letter away from Ridley Scott’s chest-bursting nightmare, a coincidence the teaser is reported to wink at. Petey, one assumes, is hoping for the friendlier kind of house guest.
T.J. Power plays Petey, with Charlotte Nicdao (Mythic Quest), Josh Helman (Mad Max: Fury Road), Emily Barclay and Benedict Hardie in support. Daley Pearson created the film and co-directs with Jeffrey Walker, with Pearson and Sophie Miller sharing the screenplay. Filming took place across Queensland, including Brisbane and the Gold Coast, which at least makes a change from every alien in history choosing a field in New Mexico. The Ludo Studio connection also means the film arrives with a reputation for ambushing grown adults with feelings in the middle of what looked like a children’s programme. Consider yourself warned.
Here at SFcrowsnest we have a soft spot for the people aliens leave behind: the abductee nobody believes, the farmer with the flattened barley, the kid on the beach. Plenty of films have asked what happens when the visitors arrive. Hardly any ask what happens to the ones who wait after they leave. On 12th November we find out whether the answer Allen gives is a satisfying one, or merely a very long-distance phone bill.
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