Bird Box Barcelona arrives five years later after a wave of horror stories

Netflix films now being tossed into the ether without even the faintest of fanfare, it’s hard to remember just what a stir the streamer’s slick survival horror Bird Box caused back in December 2018. It was the platform’s first genuine blockbuster, racking up record views (it remains the fourth most watched film ever on Netflix) and becoming a shock pop culture phenomenon spawning countless memes and the dreaded, deranged Bird Box Challenge. Yet as loud as the chatter might have been at the time, it went quiet just as fast, talks of a sequel fading as star Sandra Bullock soon spoke of temporary retirement.

Bird Box” was a poor soul’s “A Quiet Place” in which, rather than noise being perilous, the danger came from merely opening your eyes. 

But its saving grace was the intense drive of Sandra Bullock as Malorie to protect two children by any means necessary. 

The will to live is missing from Netflix’s not-quite-sequel “Bird Box Barcelona,” and so is our will to watch.

From the offset there is a resigned feeling of “OK, we get it” as scared Spaniards bare their ojos only to hurl themselves off a building or walk into traffic. The repetitive deaths are neither shocking nor scary — they are only depressing.

Station Eleven and The Walking Dead, even like The Mandalorian, Bird Box Barcelona focuses heavily on the emotions of a dad figure straining to be responsible and capable under extraordinary circumstances that repeatedly threaten a young charge. The dynamic in this movie starts to feel awfully familiar, especially when the film itself centers on the same events happening over and over: Characters flee the creatures, are exposed to them anyway, and die in grotesque ways.

As a return to a world most of us had gladly forgotten about, it’s far better than it could have been, a simple retread transformed into something flawed but competently made and narratively unexpected, albeit mildly. With more cities to torture and more markets to appeal to, expect more spin-offs to come (the ending is clumsily geared toward more) but this is a box that Netflix would be wise to close sooner rather than later.

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Sarah H

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