The 2011 film, Attack The Block, was brilliant in my opinion. The acting was nuanced and skilled, the premise was fresh and engaging, and the antagonists were not overthought, over explained, or over designed. Truly, I could gush about John Boyega’s performance (that smile at the end, the only time in the entire movie he smiles, was perfect), I could gush about the directing and concept design, but this isn’t a movie review site and you can find plenty of that elsewhere.
The baddies in this film are aliens, but they’re not your typical little grey men. They’re loping, chomping beasts that seem vaguely canine and vaguely primate, with rows of glowing teeth… like a lycanthropic piranha. Frankly, they’re perfect for a cosplay, and as you can see a few people have pulled them off quite well.
This recreation by McKinley Massacre really nails it.
Being dark and furry, they’re difficult to photograph but you can see that this one really looks fantastic. Those teeth, the star of the show, are custom cast and lit from within with blue and white LEDs.
As the aliens ran on all fours, having front stilts was integral to pulling off the movement and the proper posture. Here are some fun facts from McKinley’s site about the “Bluetooth” costume.
Fun Facts:
*Bluetooth cost about $1200 to make.
*His sound effects are actual recorded and mixed sound effects from the movie (cleaned up of course), so they’re all accurate!
*His front arm stilts have a pivoting hand and thumb.
*His fur is about 4″ long.
*I can, in fact, run in the suit on all fours. And yes, it scares the crap out of people!
There’s a brief writeup about the costume on their site, but there are a bunch of pictures of the full costume finished as well as progress pictures from the construction. Go check it all out.
More Inspiration can be found in this Instructable.
This one may not quite be as screen accurate, but there’s still good inspiration to be had. Especially in how they created a simple mouth mechanism from a plastic alligator jaw.
[special thanks to Phil Burgess for sending me these two links, they’re great!]
