A psychological thriller that made me sad

Rating: 8/10 (24 December 2018)

A lot of comments that Bird Box is a copycat of A Quiet Place or The Happening. The Happening was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and released in 2008. However, Bird Box's first draft was written before The Happening came out. So it would be safe to assume that A Quiet Place's writers got their inspirations from the two stories.
Bird Box is the better film than A Quiet Place which I also like a lot. AQP apocalypse is caused by aliens so there is no mystery there, only how to beat them in order to survive. The acting by Blunt, Krasinki and the children are superb. It does eventually become an action film where the alien is blasted into bits and less drama towards the end of that film.
In Bird Box there are no actual aliens but the "creatures" that come in form of an invisible force with angry or sad voices. It remains unseen throughout the film and only one scene gives a clue as how it looks via rough sketches. This naturally creates a lot of questions which is clever in keeping the audience guessing. There are already loads of apocalyptical films out there that have all the big answers reveal and they are rather cliche.
Bird Box deals with a lot of psychological issues. From the obvious mass suicide to who to trust to loneliness of being a single parent. The story of Malorie's (Bullock) sad childhood to how she treats Boy (Edwards) and Girl (Blair) she's protecting but not allowing them to be children for a second. And the scene that made me sad is when in the boat, Malorie almost chooses Girl to be sacrificed until she remembers the promise she had made.
It's a very over saturated genre and I am glad that Bird Box didn't follow the same silly predictable action pack gore fest formula. The two films may be similar but I undoubtedly prefer Bird Box over A Quiet Place because it is not only showing gore and cheap scares but there are a lot of thought provoking and deep themes to think about.