One of the first event movies in the relatively brief history of Netflix was 2018’s sci-fi adventure film Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, in which a presumably alien force comes to Earth and doesn’t try to eat or blow up humans. Instead, if you simply lay eyes on the alien race (which the audience never sees), you are driven so insane that you kill yourself. As a result, everyone walks around with blindfolds on, with the constant temptation to see this entity that messes with your mind by putting voices in your head, urging you to just look at them. The film briefly became a cultural phenomenon, probably because it’s easy to imagine yourself in that scenario and what your behavior might be under those circumstances.
I’ll fully admit, I had no idea that Netflix was producing a sequel of sorts, Bird Box Barcelona, until just a few weeks ago. Outside of it being based on the same novel by Josh Malerman, it has no real connection to the first film. It’s even directed by different filmmakers, the Barcelona-born brother team of David & Alex Pastor (The Occupant). We’re not even exactly sure where in time this film is chronologically set in relation to the first film, although we do get flashbacks to the beginning of the crisis in Europe—though the bulk of the film takes place some years later (I believe the first film takes place about five years after the aliens arrive).
We meet a traveler named Sebastian (Mario Casas), who navigates this treacherous world with blacked-out goggles and a young daughter named Anna (Alejandra Howard). He seems like a caring, protective father and even manages to form an alliance with a group of humans hiding out in an abandoned bus depot. But while everyone is sleeping on one of the more luxury buses, Sebastian hops in the driver's seat and sends the bus out of the building and into broad daylight, where the unseen aliens swarm and make everyone on the bus commit unspeakable acts of suicide (the one involving a spinning bus tire is especially…memorable). At this point, we realize that Sebastian is under some sort of mind control, and that he is one of a small handful of humans who is unwillingly aiding the aliens to draw humans out in the open. We also learn something interesting about Anna that I won’t reveal here.
The fascinating wrinkle in the Bird Box formula presents us with different types of tension as the film progresses. Sebastian is a gifted survivor, charming, and seemingly eager to help out any new pocket of survivors he comes across. But we are forced to feel more and more tense as we wait for him to turn on his new friends. The second group he comes across decides their current hideout isn’t safe, and they form a tentative plan to get to a nearby castle in the mountains near Barcelona, which is only accessible via a wire-rigged tram car that isn’t currently functional. Sebastian becomes close to a woman named Claire (Georgina Campbell), who primarily speaks English, and a little German girl named Sofia (Naila Schuberth), and by becoming close with them, the hold the aliens have on him is tested and he starts to have doubts about endangering his new friends. There's also a rogue priest (Leonardo Sbaraglia), who seems to be leading the traitorous humans and becomes Sebastian’s primary nemesis toward the end of the film.
Less a horror film than the first, Bird Box Barcelona is more of a straight-up action-thriller, especially as the story gets closer to the actual journey across the bombed-out but still stunning city of Barcelona, Spain, and to the isolated castle. Casas reminds me of an even swarthier version of Adam Driver, and he’s quite convincing as the caring father, grieving widower, or morally corrupt man who is literally betraying his species. The closer the group gets to their potential safe haven, the more convinced we become they will never get there or that it’s not as safe as they believe. The film also infuses a junk-spiritual vibe into the mix, which might turn some people off, but I thought was actually perfect for a city with so many churches and an enemy that inflicts a type of punishment that resembles those arrogant enough to look into the Face of God. It’s a surprisingly sharp, tense movie that opens up the possibilities of the premise and takes it in unexpected directions.
The film begins streaming Friday on Netflix.
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