I just finished watching Bird Box on Netflix. I liked it with a few caveats that would be mild spoilers that I’ll talk about at the end.
The movie is about a woman, Sandra Bullock, and the young children living in a post-apocalyptic world trying to make a journey to a safe haven. Through flashbacks, we learn what happened to the world and how the woman ended up where she is.
Content warnings for suicide, blood, implied and mild gore, close-ups of eyes, imaginary voices.
I found the movie to be very tense and unsettling. More thriller/suspense end of the horror spectrum than shock/gore. I’m not normally a horror fan because most end up in high in shock/gore which I don’t like. Suspense horror pushes my fear/anxiety buttons in a way I do like. The payoff isn’t the point. Not knowing what but knowing something is out there.
Bird Box pushed those buttons in the best ways.
Rating 4/5
Spoilers in the read more.
Spoilers start here.
The main thing that doesn’t sit right with me is the implication that people with mental health issues who see the things become deranged people who force others to do the same.
The guy in the supermarket is described as crazy and the people who supposedly attacked Gary were described as “criminally insane”. I much would have preferred if becoming a “bandit” was a small random chance. It would have added another layer of suspense if those around you might become “bandits”.
Also, I was kind of disapponted that the only lgbt representation in the movie is killed off fairly early. It’s not totally nonsensically that he would do what he did but the writer/s could have chosen someone else. And then the “spare” comic-relief black man died saving all the white people.