Ya gotta show the monster!

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2018)

While "Quiet Place" committed the ultimate sin of fully disclosing the monster's appearance in the first couple minutes of the film, thereby nullifying the mystery and reducing the terror by a huge margin and I appreciated that "Bird Box" opted to swing the opposite direction in order to optimize that terror, the audience does demand SOME satisfaction-even if you leave it until the very last shot. We've GOT to see the monster! Bird Box NEVER shows it-not even once! The only "glimpse" we have of it is of what could be wind rustling wind in its' wake. We also get to see Gary's sketches of the monster. (spoiler warning) Gary presumably has seen the monster and is infatuated with its "beauty" and is compelled to sketch it-often. He pulls out his collection of sketches before starting a new one just prior to attempting to doom our band of survivors by pulling the parchment paper off of the windows and confining the bird/warning system to the freezer and urging everyone to "look at it" and show the newborn babies.
In the end, though it seems that "Bird Box" DOES show the TRUE monsters, which, incidentally, like "The Walking Dead", are merely humans. In "Bird Box", however, these humans have seen the monster, but instead of being compelled to commit suicide, they think that it is the most beautiful thing they have seen and are compelled to share the monsters' "beauty" with everyone else-forcefully, if need be. This started me thinking about the nature of these people, to be honest. Being secular, myself, their compulsion to share with everyone something which may in fact be fatal to them sort of reminded me of the way some religiously-devout followers go about trying to share "The Good News" or "Show The Light" to others they believe to "need" those experiences. I spent much of the movie wondering if the book hadn't actually been written as an analogy for religion-perhaps a specific one, and I began to look at the individual examples and to think about how they might relate to something I've seen in real life. Lydia, who opens her doors (borders) to someone who needs help (a refugee) is killed by the monster and John Malkovich's character is deeply resentful because of this. We can understand why, but it really did remind me of the scenario we had when, as a nation, we were debating among ourselves about whether to help Syrian refugees and the consequences we could potentially face as a result. The Main hero, Tom, is a soldier who has done a tour of duty in Afghanistan, so it's easy to see who the Author views as his heroes. Don't get me wrong: I am in no-way implying that our veterans are NOT heroes: I'm only trying to solidify my case that my suspicion is that the author of the book/screenplay is deeply Conservative and that this was actually written as an analogy for religion-my guess being Islam, in particular.
As soon as I finished watching the movie, I hit the 'Net, looking for anything to confirm my suspicions, but could find nothing about the author's political views or any mention about the book being meant as a veiled warning against Muslims or refugees. As far as I know, this review is the first publicly-voiced suspicion linking these things together and I'm curious to see if anyone agrees with me.