My latest excursions into the films recommended to me by Netflix, as well as a flurry of social media discussion, have brought me to the recently released thriller Bird Box. This Sandra Bullock flick borrows key elements from many preceding post-apocalyptic and horror films -- the waves of mass suicides that kick off the plot are reminiscent of The Happening, even using sudden gusts of wind as a sign of impending doom, while the nature of the mysterious beings causing them and the ways the protagonists avoid the effects call back to It Follows, A Quiet Place, and even the Boggarts from Harry Potter, for instance. All of these are combined to make a solid film that'll leave you tense for a good two hours.
I especially liked the inclusion of "proxies" who are immune to the memetic properties of the suicide-inducing beings and instead seek to expose survivors to said beings, almost like zombies with their mental functions still intact. I also appreciated how the film's producers chose to make said creatures invisible, not only adding to the fear of the unknown but avoiding any unintentional humor arising from a design that's more hilarious than unnerving. After all, many who worked on the film have likened the original concept for the creatures to "a long fat baby." However, I found much of the plot fairly predictable, but there's really not much you can do to be truly innovative in the post-apocalyptic genre nowadays. At the very least, I'm glad they decided on a comparatively happy ending here -- after all, they already used up the "stranger double-crosses the rest of the group" element earlier. In any case, I'm looking forward to skimming through others' impressions and theories about this film -- I've already seen some fascinating insights, and I expect more to come as this film settles in people's minds.
#K
Comments
Post a Comment