Scarlett Johansson’s Most Unsettling Sci-Fi Movie Is Officially Getting Cut From Netflix

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Published Oct 28, 2026, 8:45 PM EDT

“You don’t want to wake up, do you?”

Scarlett Johansson has spent years playing some of sci-fi’s most recognizable women. Luc Besson transformed her into something approaching a god in 2014’s Lucy, and the much-maligned live-action Ghost in the Shell gave her a fully cybernetically enhanced body to play around with in a near-future Newport City. Of course, there’s also Black Widow, the former assassin who became one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most dependable heroes across nine films, from Iron Man 2 to Black Widow. Johansson has built a career playing characters who straddle the line between human and something otherworldly, but you’ve never seen ScarJo quite like this.

Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin is a different kind of sci-fi movie, one that trades gun-fu action and elaborate world-building for something far more disturbing. The film stars Johansson as an unnamed extraterrestrial who takes the form of a woman and prowls the streets of Scotland picking up unsuspecting men in her van, before luring them toward a fate they couldn’t possibly imagine. If that sounds like the setup for a conventional alien invasion thriller, rest assured Glazer has something much stranger in mind. The movie is a hypnotic nightmare that strips sci-fi down to pure sensory horror, and it’s set to leave Netflix on October 31, making Halloween the perfect excuse to experience one of Johansson’s most haunting performances.

The horror of being human

The true terror of Under the Skin lies in its refusal to explain anything. Early on, the Female (Johansson) encounters a swimmer on a beach while a family struggles against the waves. A dog is swept out to sea, and the parents rush into the water to save it. The swimmer manages to help the father but collapses from exhaustion. Rather than offer assistance, the Female approaches the incapacitated man, drags him away, and leaves the family to its fate. There’s no triumphant musical cue or dramatic declaration of evil. She simply carries on with her work, utterly indifferent to the suffering happening around her.

It’s a horrifying sequence, but it also establishes the film’s central tension. We understand the tragedy unfolding before us because we’re human, while the Female doesn’t. Glazer shoots the scene with a cold, observational distance that makes it feel more like a nature documentary focusing on a predator that happens to look just like an ordinary human being. Johansson barely needs to say a word to get the terror of a particular scene across. Her blank expressions and detached air tell us everything we need to know about the gulf between her and the innocent bystanders she encounters.

In one of the film’s most memorable images, Johansson’s character walks ahead of a man who follows her into a black liquid landscape. As she undresses, and he follows suit, he suddenly begins sinking into the darkness with every step. The men often believe they’re participating in some kind of sexual encounter, but the reality is much more grotesque. Coupled with Mica Levi’s extraordinary score, such scenes transform a simple predatory hook into a sensory experience. There’s no comforting explanation for what’s happening, no scientific lecture to make the imagery easier to understand. We’re simply left to watch, much like Johansson’s character watches humanity, trying to make sense of something that refuses to explain itself. Glazer makes perfect use of these environments, channeling the minimalist spirit of European art-house cinema by prioritizing moody visual poetry over narrative hand-holding. But it isn’t just the otherworldly places that make Under the Skin, for lack of a better phrase, get under your skin.

With help from cinematographer Daniel Landin, Glazer placed Johansson in real-world Scottish settings using hidden micro-cameras that captured unscripted reactions from non-actors who had no idea they were sharing a van with a Hollywood star. Dubbed "One-Cams," these tiny, custom-engineered digital sensors were hidden directly into the dashboard, streetlights, and public furniture, allowing Glazer to run a covert sociological experiment through the streets of Glasgow. Johansson drove through actual traffic, picking up random men and improvising conversations while Glazer directed her via a hidden earpiece from a trailing surveillance vehicle. That same voyeuristic camera lens followed her out into the bleak Scottish Highlands, seamlessly blending raw guerrilla documentary footage with the alien detachment of a high-art nightmare.

Under the Skin is truly something special when you realize how improvised it all is, even though it never really feels that way. A perfect example is the scene where Johansson trips into the middle of a busy Glasgow shopping district. Having no clue who she was or what was being filmed, random passersby all rallied to help her back onto her feet; just everyday citizens doing their part to help someone in need. For the scene to legitimately make it into the movie, production assistants had to track down all those kind souls to get them to sign release forms, which is the same for the men picked up by ScarJo in her creepy van. Only after entering the vehicle were they handed a consent form. It’s an ingenious way to make a film feel totally organic.

The best part is that Under the Skin is all about what it means to be human. Rather than imagining what happens when humanity encounters something more powerful than itself, Glazer asks what it might look like to experience humanity as an outsider. The result is an eerie and uncomfortable film that gradually shifts from an alien’s hunting expedition into an alien’s fraught understanding of human vulnerability. It’s not an easy watch, nor is it particularly interested in being one. But if you’re looking for something genuinely unsettling for Halloween, Under the Skin taps that nerve with a chilling efficiency that's impossible to ever forget.

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