19/10/2022 - Andrew Cumming’s debut feature makes a genre film out of our species’ early history and imbues it with a sombre take on human nature

A group of people dressed in furs and sheepskin are gathered around a fire at night; they are quiet, some lost in thought and others resting. A child asks to be told a story – their story, in fact. From the very first sequence of his debut feature, The Origin, which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival, Andrew Cumming reveals the simplicity of life for these Palaeolithic humans, but also their emerging sense of themselves as survivors and adventurers. Their ability to simply stay silent all together and be comforted by the flames feels like a far cry from our modern short attention spans, yet their reliance on storytelling to understand who they are is evidently relatable.

The group is led by patriarch Adem (Chuku Modu), who promises to bring his family to safety after successfully reaching a new, unfamiliar territory. Despite the fears of the eldest of the group, Oldo (Arno Luening), who talks of monsters hidden in the shadows, Adem is convinced that his strength and determination will protect them: he seems to be the embodiment of human rationality and stubbornness, yet his heavily pregnant partner Ave (Iola Evans) as well as his young son are concrete motivations for his baseless faith. When the whole world is unknown and potentially dangerous, what else can you do but plunge headfirst into it and hope to find a refuge?

Soon, however, the darkness reveals itself to be truly dangerous. Adem and Ave’s son disappears, seemingly captured by a strange animal. Determined to save his lineage but also to prove his superiority over the elements, Adem goes blindly into the night and thus begins what feels like a classic, even clichéd, creature-horror film. Jump scares, dark shapes moving quickly in the woods and Alien-like shrieks become quickly repetitive, as almost every member of the group goes through similar experiences looking for their mates and facing this unseen beast. Yet beyond this familiarity, the choice of fitting the story of our very early days into the creature genre feels like a misstep: until a plot twist two-thirds of the way into the film, the viewer (or at least this one) gets the impression that Cumming didn’t have faith in how interesting life in the Stone Age was and felt the need to up the ante by adding a horror aspect to it. Quite uncommonly and paradoxically, the reveal gives more legitimacy to what came before it.

The survivors of the group constantly have to make hard choices for their survival, and Cumming seems to argue that a sense of personal responsibility and a desire for community are natural human attributes that emerged from the harsh circumstances in which our ancestors evolved. The picture is a little more complex, however, as some decisions leave no one truly satisfied. In The Origin, early humans are shown to have been capable of animosity, shame and regret, and the names of Adem and Ave not so subtly refer to an original sin that has been carried down through the generations and which Cumming deems, understandably so, irreconcilable. Perhaps the true beast was us all along.

The Origin was produced by the UK’s Escape Plan Productions and Selkie Productions.