MOVIE REVIEW – Bird Box Barcelona, the Spanish spin-off of the Netflix horror thriller, tries to spice up a sparse concept but achieves only modest results. Mario Casas and Georgina Campbell star in the survival thriller about Pastor brothers Alex and David, in which unseen entities spread a suicide-inducing epidemic.

Susanne Bier’s 2018 apocalyptic sci-fi thriller Bird Box for Netflix was a half-baked stew of familiar ideas, but elevated by a commanding Sandra Bullock, who fought a mysterious alien threat with dogged determination to keep two children safe. The themes of trauma, grief, and the exercise of parental roles under extreme conditions are echoed in Pastor brothers Alex and David’s follow-up, Bird Box Barcelona, which is more of a spin-off than a sequel. This creation begins in an anthology style, with new details that expand on the original threat, but offer little illumination.

Technically no problem, but there are many borrowed clichés

Technically the movie is well done, the actors are good, it is atmospherically disturbing and definitely watchable. As an extension of a popular franchise, which increases Netflix’s breakthrough into international productions, it serves a dual purpose. But as genre material, it’s generic, as if the filmmakers had randomly mashed together elements of A Quiet Place, The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, and other dystopian nightmares that tell of humanity driven to the brink of extinction by a force of unknown origin, creating a world where the dwindling number of survivors no longer know whom to trust.

The Pastors stray from Josh Malerman’s 2014 source novel and Bullock’s central character, Malorie, and try to have it both ways, keeping the ambiguity and explaining the suicide-inducing effect of seeing the creatures. Their script does both too much and too little to justify the deeper dive into a story that already suffered from contrivance and wavering logic in the first place.

Moving the setting to a Catholic country allows for a mildly interesting religious twist. A wild-eyed priest, Father Esteban (Leonardo Sbaraglia), welcomes the deadly creature as a divine miracle that frees lost souls from the hell of earthly life. The priest, along with a small team of “seers” who have witnessed the phenomenon but resist the curse, patrols the streets and anoints survivors’ foreheads with a third eye, forcing them to accept their fate.

A new perspective

The most important innovation of the spin-off is that bodies emit a flash of light immediately after death, suggesting spiritual liberation. This reinforces the faith of Father Esteban, who says: “Our God and his angels have come down to walk on earth. One of the dying speaks as if in heavenly rapture: “Their ships traveled millions of light-years to get here.”

But even the most rational characters can’t get any closer to deciphering the cause of the mass suicides. Some see demons, others aliens, some their own tormentor, others their god. One character, played by the underused Diego Calva (Babylon), theorizes that they are probably quantum beings that take on different forms, observe their victims and immediately absorb their fears, anxieties and worries in order to manipulate their minds.

We perceive the creatures’ arrival through rumbling sounds, moans, growls, and a chilling windstorm that lifts leaves and debris from the ground, and we occasionally see from their perspective. At the same time, the audience is never allowed to see them in detail, except for a brief, partial glimpse in a final scene.

Bewildering Horror

While some of the suicides are frightening and the movie maintains a horror atmosphere throughout, the entire plot is too confusing to be effective in the horror genre, and there are too many deaths for the tension to be strong enough. The movie does not do enough to engage the viewer. The characters are superficial, their pasts revealed mostly through whispered voices carried by the wind in the presence of the formless menace.

The Pastor brothers have previously explored similar themes in films such as “Carriers,” about a deadly virus, and “The Last Days,” about a post-apocalyptic world. They mirror the delicate flashback structure of Bier’s film, in which the protagonist, Sebastián (Mario Casas), appears as a desperate man walking the streets in dark sunglasses, hiding in abandoned buildings in Barcelona while trying to protect his 11-year-old daughter, Anna (Alejandra Howard), from danger.

After establishing Sebastián as a vulnerable hero when he is attacked by a trio of blind robbers, the script quickly changes the viewer’s perception of him, questioning his motives and winning the trust of one surviving community after another. “Am I the shepherd or the wolf?” he asks at a critical moment, losing faith because of his actions, highlighting a duality that gives Casas the opportunity for some relatively strong acting. We soon realize that Anna is not quite what she seems.

Back to the Past

The movie first jumps back nine months before the current events, recalling the outbreak of the pandemic. Reports of a wave of psychotic behavior come in as Sebastián rushes from his office through the chaos of the city to pick up Anna from school, narrowly avoiding a mass suicide in the subway station.

The action then flashes back to seven months before the opening scene, after Sebastián has been accepted into a community hiding in a bunker. The community is led by Rafa (Patrick Criado); the English psychologist Claire (Georgina Campbell, who will be seen in Barbarians); the German teenage tourist Sofia (Naila Schuberth), who was separated from her mother in the chaos; the older Roberto (Gonzalo de Castro) and Isabel (Lola Dueñas); and Octavio, played by Calva.

The real driving force of the plot – which ideally should have begun earlier – is the group of blindfolded survivors who, as a heroic test and hope, seem to be trying to reach the sanctuary on the other side of the city, the Castle of Montjuïc. This 17th-century fortress on a hilltop is accessible from the city by cable car, which seems even more appealing in an emergency, since it might avoid the danger in the line of sight.

Of course, as the story progresses, the group’s numbers dwindle along the way, with the loss of some of its members. Thus, the reduced contingent of the main characters has to face a double threat – on the one hand, the alien deadly force that they still cannot fully understand or overcome, and on the other hand, the human crusaders who, despite the pandemic, are determined to start a new life and want to open their eyes to the “miracle” that the blindfolded survivors still stubbornly reject.

The Castle is the Climax

The fortified location, Montjuïc Castle, is undoubtedly the climax of the entire story and the site of the climactic battle. This battle ties together the intricate threads of the movie and gives hope for further installments. Laia Colet’s production design is generally effective – even if the CG team’s brush strokes are occasionally visible – and helps bring the world to life for the viewer. For example, the half-sunken, wrecked ocean liner in the harbor, or the bridges decorated with hanging bodies, vividly convey the merciless and hopeless world.

The most impressive and unnerving element of the movie, however, is the dense sound design, which cleverly blends with Zeltia Montes’ ominous score. This dual audio atmosphere expresses the horror of the world as well as the inner dramas of the characters. Unfortunately, there is little in the story that gets under your skin with similar skill. It seems that the movie was more concerned with creating atmosphere and visual spectacle than with a deeper understanding of the characters and the story.

-BadSector-