by SM Punk

So unless youve been living in a cave on Mars, with your hands over your ears and a blindfold covering your eyes, youve no doubt heard that Bird Box was just released on Netflix this past weekend. Like any other fan of cinema, i typically leap to the internet (reddit) to consume all of the post watching information i can find on whatever ive just partaken in. What i have found, seems to be very polarizing reviews. The two most frequently written come in the form of either “a more boring Quiet Place” or “well written, well acted, well received”. Is it possible however, to be both?

For those that havent seen BB or AQP, major spoilers lie ahead. EVERYONE DIES AT THE END OF BOTH MOVIES!!!

Haha, just kidding, or am i? i dont remember, but heres what i think. Right off the jump, lets discuss whether or not BB is really just a poorly made version of AQP. Well, a quick internet search shows that BB was first a novel written by some lead singer of some minutely known band called The High Strung way back in 2014. a full 3 years prior to the release of AQP. However, the rough draft for BB was first penned all the way back in 2008, the same year the Patriots went undefeated and won the SuperBowl, 19-0 baby! At the time, you might remember a cinematic masterpiece called The Happening starring South Boston’s own, Marky Mark (sans funky bunch, unless you consider Zooey Deschanel funky) and directed by a hot newcomer in Hollywood by the name of M. Night Himalayaman.

In The Happening (SPOILERS!!) Mother Nature has decided shes had just about enough of humanity and decides to set forth a bio-plague which causes mass suicide by anyone stupid enough to enjoy a little bit of fresh air. It isnt until Marky Mark finds a crystal skull, abandoned on Earth by ancient aliens, with the help of Shia LeBouf that we (humans) are able to send Mother Nature packing after a solid ass kicking. USA! USA!

So where was I? Right, The Happening came out in 2008 to critical reviews… by critics. So the author of Bird Box was rightfully nervous that his very similar story might not be as well received as he had hoped. At the time he was hoping for more of a Dirty Dancing type of reception, unfortunately, he was correct and his novel got more of a Step Up 2: The Streets type of fanfare. Although well liked by fans of the suspense/thriller/blindfold genre, it wasnt until Original Movie MEGA POWER Netflix picked up the screenplay, that buzz started to take place surrounding the project.

Ok, as of right now, we have a story in BB that is about a naturally sentient, although unseen force, which makes you violently kill yourself if you were to gaze upon its awesome power. Which is similar to the structure of The Happening (nature makes you kill yourself) being released a full year after the critically successful release of A Quiet Place (abandoning one of your 5 senses to survive an unseen monster). I mean, not the best timing. However, if you were to dive just a little bit deeper, you might change your mind about dismissing this Netflix Original as a shoddy side B.

In AQP, the main characters… Jim from the Office and New Mary Poppins, are a family living in the middle of an apocolyptic event, surrounded by these blind monster dog thingys, that have super acute hearing and an insatiable bloodlust. To survive, Big Tuna and the Girl on the Train, set up all these boobytwap’s… thats what i said, BOOBY TWAPS, to help them battle these blind motherfuckers and try to live an otherwise normal life. Who amongst us hasnt nearly caused the collapse of our entire household from a game of monopoly thats gotten a little to heated? Ultimately Jim sacrifices himself so that his super-genius daughter can discover a way to beat the super sensitive to sound monsters, through the use of…. wait for it, LOUD NOISES. Jesus Christ people, Spiderman vs Venom showed us that little trick nearly 40 years ago.

Stupid plot device aside, what AQP was so effective at, was telling a story through a visual medium… sort of like, it was written to be viewed on a gigantic screen, in a dark theater, where silence is of the out-most importance. AQP was essentially a silent movie without the janky saloon piano and blatant racism. Bird Box however was developed for the written medium (am i using the word medium correctly?) one that places the importance on what you can imagine and NOT what you can see. As stated before, in BB the big bad is a biological monster/virus/ghost? that forces the violent demise of any who look or are forced to look at it. There is also a side plot of the mentally unstable that are immune to its destructive power but are coerced into doing the entity’s bidding by trying to make unaffected people forcibly open their eyes. Throughout the movie we are treated to elongated POV scenes of the main characters traversing the world in blindfolds. Thats why the idea of a movie, whose main “monster” is unseen (the monster/entity is never seen) doesnt really feel like the best idea. Although widely believed that the best monsters throughout cinematic history have always been ones whose screentime is limited (Jaws, OG Michael Myers, black characters on FRIENDS) it is hard to make a monster movie without an actual monster.

What BB does instead of a jump scares and gore porn though, is try to scare you through good to great acting. With a star studded cast including Sandy Bullock, Cyrus the Virus, Lil Rel Howery (from Uncle Drew fame), Sarah Paulson from AHS and even mother fucking BD WONG!! Sandy is superb as a flawed and selfish woman forced into a leadership/parenting role. Her co-main is some black guy ive never heard of but definitely seen before and kept thinking he was either Sterling K Brown or maybe 50 Cent, and he does an amazing job of breathing hope and life back into a world of darkness (via blindfolds). Malky is probably the strongest character while Lil Rel is obviously the funniest. The movie is ensemble driven and flawlessly executed to that extent.

As the movie plods along, characters are killed off one by one until only America’s sweetheart remains, and then Sandy Bullock kills Julia Roberts… ZING! in the end, Sandy finds her way to safety and salvation in the form of, wait for it… A SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND. I mean, the first thing i said to Nance while watching the movie was “blind people would do well here” and, i was proven right, again.

Ultimately BB is a very good movie and although shares some cinematic cliches with AQP and even The Happening, it differs in the way it expects you the viewer to process what youre seeing, or not seeing. There is no answer as to what the entity is, there is no explanation as to why this is happening, there is no victory for our characters… only drawn out survival. Without reading the book, i cant tell you that the book was better, although based off of reddit posts, the suggestion is that the book was better (as always)… but i can definitely say that Bird Box was not a more boring or cheaply made version of A Quiet Place. It was better acted, better written for its characters, better paced in terms of past and present and even better priced (free)…

…yet, it still wasnt better than A Quiet Place.

Sit Bird Box

Start A Quiet Place