The Big Picture
Annihilation is a sci-fi movie that redefines the genre, incorporating horror elements and leaving room for interpretation. The “scream bear” in the film is the most terrifying element, with its grotesque appearance and ability to reproduce its victims’ dying screams. The bear symbolizes existential themes of self-annihilation and the uncontrollable power of nature, evoking a deep sense of fear and vulnerability.
Annihilation is the haunting 2018 movie directed by Alex Garland which stars Natalie Portman, Oscar Isaac, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Gina Rodriguez. It follows a group of scientists who are sent on a mission into an unknown “Shimmer,” an unexplained phenomenon that materialized after a meteor struck the area, and has been expanding ever since. Only Lena’s (Portman) husband Kane (Isaac) returned from previous expeditions, and Lena and her crew must investigate what has been happening inside the Shimmer’s ominous albeit beautiful rainbow gleam. Redefining its sci-fi genre, with strong horror elements, Annihilation is masterful in its storytelling abilities, weaving symbolism throughout in a way that hints at certain themes, but still leaves the movie open to interpretation. Its subjective meaning, therefore, enables its most disturbing elements to be read in ways that are personal to the viewer, allowing the horror to resonate on a more intimate level. One particularly harrowing moment is the “scream bear,” a mutated bear that replays the final screams of its victims. This bear combines a multitude of uncanny and horrifying factors that tap into viewers’ unique definitions of fear, thus becoming the film’s most terrifying element.
Why Is the ‘Annihilation’ Bear So Terrifying?
Image via Paramount Pictures
The Annihilation bear is both huge in stature and grotesque in appearance, launching multiple attacks on the group during the course of the movie. In addition to being threateningly large, its fur is matted, and its face’s hide is partially rotted away to reveal some of its skull and many of its carnivorous teeth. The cavernous impressions on one side of its face also resemble a human skull, revealing how it absorbs the human lives it takes with it. Returning to the group to unleash yet more death and destruction in the movie’s memorably infamous scene, its malformed body leaves a startling impression, forming just one of the reasons it’s the scariest part of the film.
Perhaps the most alarming yet inventive feature of Annihilation’s bear is that it uncannily reproduces its last victim’s dying screams. This is the most torturous of the bear’s many threatening facets, reminding the grieving group of their friend Cassie’s (Tuva Novotny) final moments. It prompts the deeply human instinct of fear by bringing to life someone’s most humanly vulnerable moment, evoking one’s own mortality. Cleverly playing on “the uncanny”, marrying a bizarre creature with the familiarity of a human voice is unsettling, positioning the bear as an intrinsic threat. Both heartbreaking and coldly sinister, the human cries for help that the bear shudderingly emits work their way into the human psyche on a number of levels.
In this scene, Lena, Josie, (Thompson), and Dr. Ventress (Leigh) have been tied up by Anya (Rodriguez) for whom the traumatizing events have triggered paranoia. Thus, unable to defend themselves, they are totally vulnerable against the bear’s ruthless might, making this one of the film’s most terrifying moments. The shot where the bear positions itself face-to-face with Josie is a moment of incredible mounting tension, as she stares death right in the face.
What Is the Meaning Behind ‘Annihilation’s Bear?
Image via Paramount Pictures
Not only can Annihilation’s use of the demonic bear stimulate an instinctual part of ourselves, but it is also deeply existential. The bear’s assimilation of Cassie’s final outcry reflects a total annihilation of self, recalling the film’s title. This theme is peppered throughout, as the various characters become irrevocably and intrinsically changed by the environment, which can also act as a metaphor for cancer. The bear’s changed physicality and its unification with Cassie’s vocal exclamations and face also align with this metaphor. This is caused by the Shimmer, which refracts and changes DNA, mutating every living thing around it. Ultimately, the way nature becomes warped, and how powerless we are to stop it, is represented here. The natural world is impersonal in its cycle of destruction and rebirth, and that is something that can be existentially terrifying.
The clinical way in which the bear produces a mechanical-sounding echo of Cassie’s voice emulates the unrelenting power of the universe — and how little we can do to change it. Whether this be emblematic of chronic illness, life and death, or the forces of nature, the bear influences us to confront our most vulnerable fear — the threat of annihilation. Existentially, visually, and instinctively terrifying, Annihilation’s bear resonates with viewers, accentuating our human fragility in this often strange and unfamiliar world.
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