After the pitchfest at the Marquis Marriott near Times Square Saturday, I ambled over to 42nd street, and saw Hanna Bergholm’s (IIja Rautsi is the writer)new horror film from Finland, Hatching (Kalucka), at the AMC (the Regal across the street still seems closed). It took about five escalators to get to the auditorium.
In an over sunlit suburban community, a raven enters a home and destroys the living room chandaliers. The mom (Sophia Heikkila) gets mad and goes out an breaks a neck of the bird (maybe the wrong one), and the daughter Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) goes out into the woods and finds the bird, finishes the mercy killing but takes the egg.
Well, the egg overgrows and hatches an enormous creature who can gradually metamorphize and even replace other people. So the film reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (remade twice) . But the bird simply accelerates the dissolution of the family’s life.
Mom pushes her daughter in gymnastics and tumbling – genuine women’s sports – and her husband looks rather foopish and non-binary. Another family member, an uncle, is manlier and runs a repair shot in his old fixed-upper house. The movie simply has to build on more fantastic encounters as the monster expands, at one point into a girl with the entire cheek torn back to the ears.
Mom had run a "mommy blog" called Lovely Everyday Life, as if consumerism was all that mattered (Heather Armstrong's firehose Dooce was a lot more than that). I wonder if her blog would have followed the recommendations of Blogtyrant.
The film had been a hit at Sundance 2022 and will move to Hulu May 9. The US theatrical distributor is IFC Midnight.
The film was shot in Riga. Latvia. The overly sunny environment adds innocence to the satire.
The film was indeed shot in an area of the world that could fall under Russia's eyes. Latvia (NATO) used to be an SSR republic, and Finland (may join NATO) was at war with Russia early during WWII. I visited some Finnish communities in Ohio and upper Michigan in 2019, and they all said Russia is dangerous.
There is a crow who comes to my balcony and watches me sometimes. When I had the house, another crow who seemed to live in neighbor's tree, got to recognize me and actually chased me inside the day of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. I called him "Timo" and I wonder if he learned his name. Crows will definitely bond with people.
Here is a 'Body Snatchers' (mentioned above) trailer.
(Posted: Monday, May 2, 2022 by John W Boushka at 3 PM EDT)