Bird Box Barcelona (15)

Dir: David Pastor, Alex Pastor

Cast: Mario Casas, Naila Schuberth, Georgina Campbell, Diego Calva

Expanding the franchise to a Spanish setting, ‘Bird Box Barcelona‘ is a relatively effective but unnecessary follow up to the 2018 Netflix chiller.

Despite being before the Covid-19 pandemic, it does not seem that long since Netflix released their first major theatrical hit – the Sandra Bullock starring Bird Box. With the streaming giant churning out movies for fun these days, it will be difficult for any of their new releases to reach the levels of fanfare that Bird Box managed in 2018. It was the first major ‘blockbuster’ for Netflix and broke all kinds of records for a streaming platform, and even five years later, it remains their fourth most streamed movie of all time.

The huge success of the film was solely down to countless memes, which ultimately saw the film become a phenomenon overnight thanks to the ‘Bird Box Challenge’. The challenge went viral over social media, with YouTubers and other internet personalities taking part in a series of increasingly dangerous challenges whilst blindfolded – an act based on the film’s premise. The challenges got so out of hand, Netflix themselves had to tweet to warn viewers from taking part in the challenge as it was resulting in accidents.

Not long after the release of Bird Box, the world had real issues to worry about as the pandemic swept the planet, and as quickly as the hype around the film had arrived, it was gone. This saw a potential sequel put on hold as buzz around the film had dwindled and it’s star, Sandra Bullock, spoke of a potential impending retirement. A few years later, and with the days of the global pandemic long behind us, Netflix have made an attempt to turn their original success story into an international franchise, by relocating the setting from California to the sunny streets of Barcelona.

‘Bird Box Barcelona’ takes place in the same post apocalyptic world as it’s predecessor, where unknown, otherworldly entities cause those who see them to commit suicide. The film opens several months after the ‘invasion’, where we meet Sebastián (Mario Casas) and his eleven year-old daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard), as they are rollerblading around an abandoned gym. Whilst attempting to flee after hearing a noise in the shadows, Sebastián is attacked by a gang of blind people, whose lack of vision has enabled them to survive the dystopian streets of Barcelona. What follows is an intriguing reveal about Sebastián and Anna’s relationship which flips the film’s premise on it’s head and leads them to a ragtag group of survivors.

The group of strangers consist of a British woman named Claire (Georgina Campbell from Barbarian), an older couple; Isabel and Roberto (Lola Duenas and Gonzalo de Castro), dog handler Rafa (Patrick Criado), deliveryman Octavio (Diego Calva from Babylon) and most importantly, a young German girl named Sofia (Naila Schuberth). After speaking with Sofia in her native language, Sebastián learns of a potential safe haven at the historic Montjuïc Castle. Determined to get there, the group embarks on a perilous journey across the city, whilst being hunted by “seers”. The “seers” are a cult like group led by Father Esteban (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a local priest who believes the creatures to be Angels sent from God, and is determined to save all of humanity through death.

Despite it’s viral swagger, Bird Box was a sloppy, misjudged spin on the much more engaging A Quiet Place (2018). It was far less effective in delivering tension and scares, as well as failing in it’s world building to make you invest in the family or survival elements that John Krasinski accomplished so well in ‘A Quiet Place‘. There are similar issues with this Spanish language spin-off. Despite being tonally darker than it’s predecessor, ‘Bird Box Barcelona‘ struggles to provide enough thrills or emotional weight to have you fully invest into the central characters.

A reveal within the first act does give the spin-off a different dynamic to the original, which I actually did find quite interesting. It is a unique approach to a post-apocalyptic, survival horror and if handled correctly, it could have been an intriguing approach to the genre. However, what could have been a dark and depressing character arc for our central character, he is instead reduced to a lighter, audience-friendly arc of triumph and redemption which is far more predictable and less original.

There are some effectively brutal set-pieces at times, particularly in several flashback scenes that depict the chaos that ensued on the day the ‘angelic’ creatures first arrived on our planet. The main issue I have with this spin-off is that suffers from overexplaining. It is a criticism as old as time that less-is-more, and whilst we do not see the ‘creatures’ directly, we do see some poorly rendered effects of floating objects and heavenly beams of light, which takes away from the mystery surrounding them.

Whilst it does not do anything new, ‘Bird Box Barcelona‘ is a somewhat entertaining apocalyptic horror, much like it’s predecessor. It does however, fall flat in terms of it’s central themes of religion which are too forced and detract from any mystery or intrigue surrounding the franchise’s non-visible monsters. With more cities to destroy and markets to appeal to, I expect Netflix have more foreign language spin-offs in the pipeline.

Bird Box Barcelona is available to stream on Netflix