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The Gang
In General
- Anti-Villain: They may be delinquents but they are loyal to each other, and trying to cope in an impoverished reality.
- Delinquent: When your introduction is basically "a gang of teen muggers decide to pick on a nurse on Bonfire Night", you've hit this trope. Deconstructed, though: given their various backgrounds, they don't have many other readily available options. The more the film goes on, the more humanisation for the audience they get.
- Don't Tell Mama: A common theme with those who have family who care. "Playing video games at a mate's..."
- Hidden Depths: All of them, even the tag-alongs Probz & Mayhem, have surprising levels of expertise and characterization hidden within some of the daft stuff they say and pull.
- The Yardies: Or, at least, the kids of Yardies and apt to take up the trade. These guys are third or fourth generation, but still stuck in Estate life.
Moses
Moses
Played By: John Boyega
A quiet teenage gang leader and orphan looking for respect around the Block.
- Anti-Hero: Moses is a low-level criminal and mugger on the verge of becoming a drug dealer but he's also a brave, loyal person in a difficult place in life.
- Badass Biker: Moses is the only one who doesn't crash his bike at any point.
- Held Gaze: Dude rocks this as a whole communication style.
- Hidden Depths: Much of the film revolves around the fact that there's more to Moses and his friends than meets the eye. Moses might be a low-ranking mugger, but he has a sense of honor and a difficult home life.
- Implied Love Interest: Moses and Tia seem to hold some romantic interest in each other.
- Minor Living Alone: On paper, Moses lives with his Uncle, who is almost never around.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the blue to Dennis's red.
- Standardized Leader: He often comes off as this.
- Younger Than They Look: Given the way he looks and acts, you'd swear he must be between eighteen and twenty. It turns out he's only fifteen.
Pest
Pest
Played By: Alex Esmail
Moses' smart aleck second-in-command of the gang.
- Batter Up!: Uses an aluminum bat as his backup weapon.
- Buffy Speak: You can thank him for coining the term "Big alien gorilla-wolf motherfuckers" to describe the aliens.
- Deadpan Snarker: The most sarcastic of the group.
- Fatal Fireworks: Uses fireworks as his main weapon.
- Made of Iron: Spends most of the film with bad bite wounds in his leg.
- Plucky Comic Relief: He often says the funny lines in the group.
- Shout-Out: According to writer/director Joe Cornish, the rockets sticking out of Pest's backpack are an homage to Boba Fett.
- Token White: He's the only white member of the gang
Dennis
Dennis
Played By: Franz Drameh
A hotheaded pizza delivery boy and member of the gang.
- The Big Guy: The most hotheaded of the group and the first to brandish the katana.
- Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: He's the first of the gang to die.
- Car Fu: Uses a police van to kill one of the aliens.
- Hot-Blooded: He's easily the most aggressive and quick to anger out of the gang.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the red to Moses's blue.
- Token Evil Teammate: He's the most unpleasant gang member and is perfectly willing to leave Sam to die because he views her as an annoyance.
Jerome
Jerome
Played By: Leeon Jones
A schoolboy and member of the gang.
- Machete Mayhem: Picks up a machete as his weapon.
- Nerd Glasses: He wears a thick pair of glasses.
- Only Sane Man: He's often the voice of reason and the most level-headed in the gang.
- Token Good Teammate: Not that the rest of the gang are evil, but Jerome is the most blatantly likable and even-tempered member. He sympathizes with Sam and certainly doesn't enjoy the mugging, even less so than the other members.
Biggz
Biggz
Played By: Simon Howard
The youngest member of the gang.
- Garbage Hideout: Spends most of the movie stuck in a dumpster after getting separated from the rest of the gang.
- Non-Action Guy: Biggz doesn't carry a weapon and doesn't have a bike, which means the other gang members have to carry him everywhere.
Other Block Residents
Sam
Samantha "Sam" Adams
Played By: Jodie Whittaker
A nurse and new resident of the Block.
- Action Survivor: She's an average nurse who is not physically capable as other Block residents but she manages to survive and even to kill an alien attacking Moses.
- Deadpan Snarker: She has a subtle wit exasperated by the...'challenging' circumstances.
- Held Gaze: Frequently with Moses.
- The Medic: She's a recently graduated nurse.
- The Not-Love Interest: A key dynamic of the film is her relationship with Moses, but it's never romantic. It's a gradual development of understanding, respect and friendship after an initial antagonistic encounter.
Ron
Ron
Played By: Nick Frost
The local weed dealer who lives in the penthouse of the Block and knows everyone.
- The Stoner: Well, he does deal weed. It's a professional side effect.
Hi-Hatz
Hi-Hatz
Played By: Jumayn Hunter
Ron's feared boss and the local psychotic gangster of the Block.
- Ax-Crazy: Hi-Hatz is as bloodthirsty as the aliens; he swings from mood to mood, kills when he feels like it and pulls out his gun at the slightest provocation. He actually gets progressively worse as the night goes on.
- Big Bad Ensemble: He's the main human antagonist.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: He gets pinned down by a horde of aliens zombie movie style and Eaten Alive.
- Drives Like Crazy: To the point where it's a wonder that he's alive in the first place.
- Establishing Character Moment: Introduced while singing along to a rap song about shooting a snitch.
- Faux Affably Evil: Extremely faux. Even Mayhem and Probz don't seem fooled by his friendly act, and just give him information to get him out of their hair.
- Lip Losses: When the aliens dog-pile him, one of them bites his lips off before they start eating him.
- Nasal Trauma: The aliens bite off his nose when they start eating him.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His real name isn't revealed; the Block knows him solely as Hi-Hatz.
- Revenge Before Reason: You would think that a man who notices the block is full of man-eating aliens especially because he barely survived being eaten by them would get out and wait and see if Moses becomes alien chow, but he wishes to put a bullet between Moses' eyes come hell or high water.
- Skewed Priorities: Actual aliens? Man-eating aliens? All of his goons killed by said man-eating aliens? There's disrespect that needs to be avenged!
- Stupid Evil: He is driven to kill Moses for his disrespect and he will get it, even if that means prioritizing trying to shoot Moses over defending himself when aliens come knocking.
- X Treme Kool Letterz: It's right there in the name.
Tia
Tia
Played By: Danielle Vitalis
A resident of the Block.
- Action Girl: The girl is a serious badass; when aliens attack, she barely hesitates to attack right back.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Subverted; she's implied to have a crush on Moses, but is highly critical of his criminal lifestyle.
- Improvised Weapon: Picks up a lamp and breaks it to make a makeshift taser.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: She, Dimples, and their friends flee the block when Dennis is killed.
- What the Hell, Hero?: She gives a few of these to Moses.
Dimples
Dimples
Played By: Paige Meade
A resident of the Block.
- Improvised Weapon: Uses an ice skate to kill an alien.
Mayhem & Probs
Reginald & Gavin A.K.A. Probs & Mayhem
Played By: Michael Ajao & Sammy Williams
- I Just Want to Be Badass: They naively aspire to be like Moses and his friends, who they see as tough gangsters. They do, however, get to be badass when they fight one of the aliens.
- Kill It with Fire: How they kill the alien menacing Biggz; one of them sprays the alien with oil and the other throws a flare at it.
- Those Two Guys: They always appear together.
Other Characters
Brewis
Brewis
Played By: Luke Treadaway
A student stoner and one of Ron's customers.
- Author Avatar: Joe Cornish has admitted that Brewis is his stand-in; a well-meaning but dorky and inept young stoner.
- Chekhov's Skill: Brewis' stoned intake of nature documentaries turns out to be quite useful with regards to theorizing on the nature of the aliens.
- Erudite Stoner: For the entirety of his screen-time he's at least semi-high, but no less coherent.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: He's introduced hilariously lip-synching to KRS-One. He later tries to bond with the Gang, but he's clearly a middle-class dork and they aren't impressed.
The Aliens
The main antagonists of the film, the unnamed Aliens are ferocious beasts that rain from the sky to wreak havoc on the Block and its inhabitants.
- Alien Blood: The aliens have dark blue blood, so dark that it look almost black unless smeared on something.
- Aliens in Cardiff: Gorilla-wolf motherfuckers in a South London slum.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: They have glowing neon teeth.
- Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: The first, small alien killed at the beginning is in fact a female, while the males are hulking, black ape-like beasts.
- Dark Is Evil: The aliens are black, so black that they seem to absorb all light and none of their external features can be easily seen, save for the neon-blue teeth.
- Dead Guy on Display: The first small alien, after being killed by the gang, is paraded around like a trophy by the boys, which backfires on them horribly later on.
- Eyeless Face: Both types of alien have no eyes, relying on echolocation and smell.
- Lightning Bruiser: Are very fleet of foot, and can even outrun the boys on motorcycles!
- Made of Iron: The film does a good job showing the aliens as tough but not invincible. Tia and Dimples are able to take one down but only after electrocuting it, covering it with a blanket to disorient it, then repeatedly pummeling it with lamp stand and an ice skate blade for several minutes. On the other hand, another alien takes six bullets from Hi-Hatz and still manages to slaughter both of his companions.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Though it is killed by Moses and the gang, the first small alien manages to put up quite a fight and wounds Moses in the process.
- Sense-Impaired Monster: The aliens have no visible eyes (or any visible anatomical feature for that matter, with the exception of their maws filled with glowing turquoise fangs) and hunt by smell. This factors into The Reveal that the small white alien Moses and his gang killed in the beginning of the film was the female, and the large black ones are males. When Moses was scratched by the female, he was covered in her pheromones, leading the males to relentlessly track him and his friends all over the city, while ignoring those which don't have her scent.
- Super-Persistent Predator: They chase down the boys through the block and manage to find them despite there being hundreds of rooms in the building. It turns out that they were following the scent of the female alien that Moses killed.
