Beware -- sans eyes

Rating: 6/10 (31 October 2019)

Fear gets amplified when it is amorphous and sticky to the atmosphere and without any tangible physicality. There have been many films that capitalize on an unknown entity pulling up jerks and cries in the people and stifling any ray of comfort, to strike through one's pale persona. The evil only gets bitter to the senses, when there is nothing to hide from. The breeze itself becomes a presage to all the devilish overtures and what remains is a sense of unknowability. You no longer remain inside the bony shell; fear dissipates you into the niches of everywhere. I watched the Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock - yes, the Oscar winner - and what this movie actually does is, profess the all-roundness of fear and that it can bombard you with everything wrong even if some Frankenstein monster is not coming onto you, with its vociferous monstrosity. The movie opens up with bubbles roving over the lake somewhere bound in by a rainforest and Bullock rowing the water with a plank, while seated in a canoe with her two kids. There's an outbreak of a certain kind and what really shadows everything under its clout is a fear to even see into the out. Eyes, being the points of entry, are the most prone to this viral enigma; that has pitted everyone against it. Eyeballs turn pale with darker lines jutting into the outer membrane and what really follows ahead is a systematic end to one's life and boy, gone it is. The movie has an intangible fear set up into the atmospheric niches and that follows everyone and it is this inability to tap into it, that makes it a boon for mystery-movie-guzzlers. It doesn't really swipe into your heart and embosses an impression but still revives a certain chord; of uncharted character of fear. Visuals like a woman striking her head into a windowpane, drivers diverting from the lanes and crashing into others, people getting mentally toppled and turning into suicidal freaks; make up for a different movie and that I believe, is something that eminently characterizes the Bird Box. Horror should have a deeper undertone; it shouldn't just creep into outright blows or spooky shout-outs, rather it should evolve into a mystery and in that, it doesn't relieve the viewer of the later conundrum, that he would - if it's a real hair-splitter - find himself in, even after the film has clapped its blinders on the watchers. The films in which I find horror professionally matted onto the screen hence, bringing out a textured layout of terror are namely: The Conjuring series, The Shining and such other flicks. In the Conjuring, you have a house terrorized by an occult entity and in the Shining - one of my favorites - you have a man overwhelmed by terrifying isolation of the hotel and much more. The Bird Box wasn't one of those movies which I would admire with my loins ungirded but it should be a one-time watch; because of its invisibility of fear itself and also because of the astounding performance by Bullock onto the screen. Just to hear her accent on a televised reel is something one would dunk in money for. Bird Box doesn't really stump you like a real-time horror flick as it doesn't have the innate makings of what makes up a film soul-peeling; as one might find out in other mainstream horror movies. It's more of modernized version of how such horror films would be, in the near future. In this, we have fear getting infused into one's conscious through eyes and that plucks out all the neural capabilities of its host and then the body plays host to the parasitic fear. The way it has been conceptualized - the fear - is quite astounding and it could be brought into analogy with many of the ills of today like excessive periods of time spent over radiation-emitting devices and as has been scientifically verified, it does produce some chemical reactions within one's mind and procreates many other conditions. Bird Box isn't the best movie out there; it is connotatively rich and does produce some horrific rushes within one's body but they aren't much profound as one would have sought in other such movies. The movie just touches another dimension of horror and in that it does a good job in introducing a newer version of how to get horrified. Another movie that could be leagued with it, is The Silence. It doesn't differ much in its tone than the Bird Box, and it uses the similar cinematic tools to defy horror: a movement done is a sure forebode of danger. In The Silence, we have an apocalyptic outbreak of ghoul-footed creatures prying over sounds. A sound made would make way to their highly-sensitive ears and they would run to eat them with a ruthless clutch. Both the movies have taken on a wholly different turn; with each skimming the fear from sensual experiences.