Where to watch: ‘Hatching’ opens this Friday, April 29th, at AMC theaters.
Forget flowers and Hallmark cards this Mother’s Day. In her new film, Hatching, Finnish director Hanna Bergholm turns the traditionally sweet holiday into a nightmarish conjuring with blood, body horror, and–most terrifying of all: birds. Premiering at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, Hatching‘s old-fashioned camp mixed with modern-day sensibilities (think animatronic Chuck E. Cheese characters meets Black Mirror) make it a film that’s hard to define. One thing is certain, though: Hatching is not for the faint of heart–or stomach.
From the outside, the quiet pre-teen gymnast Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) seems to live an enviable life in the suburbs of Finland. Her family of four is the embodiment of “Live Laugh Love.” At least, that’s the image her mother (Sophia Heikkilä) projects through her nauseatingly optimistic vlog ‘Lovely Everyday Life.’ But there are cracks in the superficially perfect foundation that Tinja’s mother exposes when she’s caught cheating on her husband with the handyman. Tinja is forced into the middle of growing family dysfunction at the hands of her mother and continues to grow distant from her family, which only gets worse when Tinja unexpectedly finds herself in a maternal role that she vows to keep secret.
The trouble starts after Tinja stumbles upon a strangely speckled egg in the woods outside of her home. Her maternal instincts kick in and she brings the egg home, unaware that by acting as the egg’s surrogate mother, she is imprinting on this creature (for better or worse). Days go by and the egg grows larger and larger until it hatches, revealing a human-sized bird creature that begins to morph into a direct reflection of Tinja herself. Hatching‘s uneasiness and horrific absurdity come from the increasing “life or death” stakes that Tinja begins to endure at this creature’s hands–or, rather, claws.
Fans of A24’s Lamb will find many plot similarities at the core of Hatching–specifically the act of personifying a young animal and forcing it into the world of humans. The comparisons stop there, though, as Hatching is much more vivid and grotesque. Blood, regurgitation, and insinuations of animal cruelty had me watching parts of this film through closed fingers.
With its gross and shocking horror, Hatching could easily be the next midnight movie worthy of cult status (it certainly has all of the right elements to be an Alamo Drafthouse darling.) I mean, when you have Gustav Hoegen listed as the “Creature Effects Supervisor”–the same man who worked as the animatronic designer for films like Star Wars and Jurassic World–you know you’re in for a wonderfully weird adventure.
87 minutes. Distributed by IFC Films.
