The family at the center of Finnish director Hanna Bergholm’s unnerving, instantly memorable horror flick “Hatching,” on first blush, are their own kind of perfect. This quartet of influencers, who sell their idyllic homelife to their legion of followers, are led by a ruthlessly ambitious mother (Sophia Heikkilä), while her husband (Jani Volanen), an amiable oaf, chooses to ignore her worst tendencies. Nearly completing this intimate circle of IG-filter hell is their self-centered bratty son, Matias (Oiva Ollila). But it’s their lonely daughter, Tinja (Siiri Solalinna), a so-so gymnast pushed to her breaking point by a mother guiding her to a competitive space she failed in herself, that finds Bergholm’s focus.
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“Hatching” reminds viewers not to mess with nature. While filming a sizzle reel of their home life, a crow flies into the family’s living room – a pink-colored space decorated in artificial department store showroom chic. Upon capturing the bird, the mother ruthlessly snaps its neck, only for the daughter to later discover its nest, and a lone egg. Nestling the egg in the heart of her giant stuffed bear, it exponentially grows until a human-sized bird hatches. Those details, which occur in the film’s opening third, provide pertinent context without spoiling the rest of the film. Because apart from its premise, which mixes folkloric creations, somewhat like Valdimar Jóhannsson’s “Lamb,” and a similar search for a chosen family that courses through Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” it’s best not to know much more.
“Hatching” is wholly unpredictable. Through screenwriter Ilja Rautsi’s original premise, Bergholm aims to traverse the difficulties faced by teenage girls: Bulimia, menstrual cycles, pregnancy, and bodily agency. But most of all, Tinja contends with the loss of her mother – not in a physical sense, but in an emotional one. Her mother, imbued with startling complexity by a forceful Heikkilä, drifts away from Tinja by finding a new family. That loss causes the gymnast to pour her full emotional will, the mothering instincts her mother seems to lack, into that decrepit, seemingly rotting blackbird, rendered to alarming horror by the film’s sturdy visual effects.
Just as compelling as the VFX are the film’s production and costume design. It says a lot that the purposefully obtrusive floral patterned wallpaper and the blouse worn by Tinja carry the appearance of a dollhouse (there’s an actual one in the corner of her room). There’s a sense that Tinja feels as though she’s been discarded like an old toy by a mother she idolized for a shiny, brand new trinket, embodied by the family’s handsome handyman (Reino Nordin) and his baby.
In this regard, Heikkilä and Solalinna share a captivating chemistry as mother and daughter. Heikkilä’s shrewd, tactically calibrated mien, and Solalinna’s oscillation between crumbling foot soldier and vulnerable child, make for a combination that allows for tension to not bubble up all at once, but simmer until the fantastical frights, seemingly unexplainable but never emotionally dishonest, take hold.
If you’re wondering how scary “Hatching” is, the answer is: very, though it goes deeper than mere jump scares. The film is often disgusting, slimy and gooey, allowing for bits of ASMR horror and practical effects. A reference to the Nancy Kerrigan attack, though it’s the one predictable beat of the narrative, further gives this film a personally twisted texture. The film’s end, which may leave some cold and others emotionally eviscerated, comes in a flash, as the innate need for mother to protect daughter is tested, to frightening effect.
“Hatching”, a smartly constructed fright machine, not only introduces a new and exciting voice to the horror landscape but cracks its way through the brain like a beak through a shell. [A-]
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