Birdbox The Book (Amazon Link)
Director Susanne Bier
Starring Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich
Brian’s Rating: 5/5
Listen to the full review in Horror Bulletin Podcast #4
This movie has gotten a HUGE amount of marketing through Netflix, and if you want to see the movie, you have to use Netflix– it’s not even available as a DVD anywhere else. From the other reviews I’ve seen this is one that you either love or hate. I thought it was really good, just don’t expect everything to be explained.
The premise is clear if you’ve seen the trailer. There are creatures who appear that, if you see one, you go insane and kill yourself almost immediately. This pares down the population very quickly, leave small groups trapped inside homes and other buildings. The film centers around Mallory (Sandra Bullock), a pregnant woman who finds herself trapped in a house with a handful of other people. There’s the leader, an old woman who wants to wait for the army, a young couple who wants nothing more than to take drugs and have sex, and then there’s John Malkovich, the old man who keeps forecasting doom, gloom, and “We’re all gonna die!” You know, the usual group of post-apocalyptic roomates.
As you can probably guess, one thing leads to another, and the population of the house drops one at a time. The film takes place in two time periods: when everything forst falls apart and Mallory is pregnant, and also five years later, when she is alone except for two small children. In the later time period, she’s in a small boat on the river trying to get to a sanctuary– or is it a trap? We move back and forth between the time periods throughout the film.
Let me point out that is one of the VERY few horror movies that include children that aren’t horrendously obnoxious. The children in this film do as they’re told, the listen, behave, and don’t whine the whole time. Hollywood– PLEASE no more screaming children!