Cinematic Releases: Hatching (2022) - Reviewed

Courtesy of IFC Midnight

The directorial debut of Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm, the psychological coming-of-age body-horror film Hatching, is a lucky one for being a lean mean Finland indie that happened to garner the special effects animatronic talents of Gustav Hoegen of Star Wars and Jurassic World fare compounded with Oscar nominated effects artist Conor O’Sullivan whose efforts go all the way back to James Cameron’s Aliens.  In other words, whatever Bergholm and her ensemble cast of Jani Volanen, Reino Nordin and Siiri Solalinna is upstaged by the veteran effects talents who provide a most grisly and ever evolving “monster” reminiscent of the equally uncanny valley foreign landed Lamb released by A24 last year.  That’s not to say Hatching doesn’t bring a unique and tragicomic horror fable to the table but fans of the aforementioned Icelandic film will likely spot some similarities.

 
Twelve-year-old gymnast Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) is beholden to her domineering picture-perfect vlogger mother (Sophia Heikkila) determined to project the idyllic nuclear family image to her followers.  One morning a crow flies into their living room, destroying family valuables in its path before mother catches and brutally kills and disposes of the animal, which leads a remorseful Tinja towards a mysterious bird-like egg which she decides to bring home and raise herself.  As the egg grows beyond human size, it gives birth to some sort of half-bird, half human creature replete with a rather humanistic hand instead of a claw.  Tinja then names “Alli” who gradually grows more human in form as it evolves into something that is either a doppelganger or some bizarre The Brood-like extension of herself which is never fully explained but intensifies in the surreal bloodletting that follows.

 
Treading kindred ground as Lamb while overtly channeling Cronenberg’s aforementioned Brood with a strange creature somehow physiologically bound to Tinja through the mold of a domestic abuse drama involving a frankly hateful witch of a mother, Hatching is an interesting if not unconventional directorial debut that flirts with body horror, adolescent fears and allegorical presentations of teen rebellion.  A generational critique of the vlogger movement, often filmed through the mother’s cellular phone, Hatching is a handsome digitally photographed endeavor lensed by Jarkko T. Laine and the original score by Stein Berge Svendsen is sure to send shivers down even seasoned horrorgoers’ spines.  It also might be one of the most acerbic sterilized portraits of a dysfunctional family unit since Yorgos Lanthimos’ explicit shocker Dogtooth.
 
Performance-wise, Siiri Solalinni is tasked with playing herself and some quasi-inhuman creature that over time starts to look more and more like her.  For a child actress it’s an extraordinary performance.  Special attention goes to Sophia Heikkila as the domineering dragon-lady mother whose beauty on the outside is outmatched by her evil ugliness on the inside.  That said, the real stars of Hatching are the film’s makeup effects artists who convincingly create a three-dimensional monster that looks tangible and not another CG rendered afterthought.  Together the forces of actors and puppeteers converge to create one of the more stinging social media critiques that isn’t a direct attack on Facebook ala Fincher’s The Social Network. 

 
Picked up by IFC Midnight in June of 2020 before going limited theatrically in April, Hatching is a solid little psychological body-horror effort as coming-of-age drama and social critique from a gifted first timer and aided by two of the best visual effects artists in the business.  Though on a tight budget, Hatching makes up for the lack of resources with ingenuity and strong performances who carry the piece from gory monster movie to incisive if not wry observation of the dehumanizing and alienating effects of social media on the ordinary family unit.  Yes the reliance on predictable jump scares does get trying after awhile but the animatronic makeup effects and points being made about the averse impact social media is having on humankind in general make Hatching well worth the indie-horror filmgoer’s time. 

--Andrew Kotwicki

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