Alpha marks the highly anticipated return of award-winning French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, who has made waves with her past movies Raw and Titane and earned herself a reputation as an exciting voice in the body horror genre.

But Alpha marks something of a departure for the 41-year-old writer-director into broader and more painful territory.

Set in an alternate 1980s/90s timeline, the movie begins as rebellious 13-year-old Alpha (Mélissa Boros) is tattooed with a shared needle at a party, putting her at risk of infection from a terrifying bloodborne disease that slowly, and incredibly painfully, turns humans to marble.

Her doctor mother (Golshifteh Farahani) is terrified that the same fate awaits her daughter as that which has already befallen her infected heroin addict brother, Amin,

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