There is really only one rule in monster movies: at some point the filmmakers have got’ta show the monster. If they don’t it doesn’t make their movie sophisticated, it make it lame.
In the new Netflix movie Bird Box, one day creatures begin appearing all over the planet, and whomever looks at one of them immediately goes crazy and commits suicide. Which is pretty interesting and unique. What’s been done before, and it’s done well in Bird Box, is that in the chaos that follows the first wave of suicides a group of people find refuge in a Los Angeles home and quickly figure out that if they want to travel outside they must do it blindfolded less they accidentally see one of these things. The survivors spend their days arguing with each other, venturing outside looking for supplies and trying not to see anything while also trying to figure out their next steps.
Think the standard people trapped in a house zombie movie, minus the zombies but with more blindfolds, and you’re pretty close to what Bird Box is.
Told in conjunction with this story is another set five years in the future where one of the people in the house Malorie (Sandra Bullock) and two kids have to make their way down a river blindfolded in order to find refuge outside of LA. IN the city certain people with mental illness can see these creatures and aren’t affected and are going around forcing everyone else to de-blindfold and look at the monsters.
The beginning of Bird Box is a lot better than the end where the whole thing kind’a falls apart. It’s almost like two different movies, both survival films but each different. The first chunk of the movie is Bird Box and the second Bird Box part 2. I think the movie would’ve been much stronger if it would’ve just ended with the people in the house present day, it actually has a natural ending now that I think about it, rather than going on into the future.
However, my main problem with the movie is that you never get to see these terrible creatures that have caused the mass suicides. I know, I know, I know — how do you depict something on-screen that’s so hideous it makes people almost immediately kill themselves? It’s impossible! Guess, what? I don’t care. At some point in a monster movie, you have to see the monster. Either the monster will look good, or the monster won’t, but no matter what it has to be shown. Otherwise what’s the point?
