Ow! Who even hangs pots and pans from the ceiling? That is so dumb.
Just need to cut my sandwich in half- *slicing noise*
Uhhh!
That's going to leave a mark...
Now where are those STAIRS-
Ow! *grunts in pain*
*Makes sounds akin to a monkey as you can hear several things break*
Ughh-
Found 'em...
Forget this stupid monster, the most dangerous thing in "Bird Box" is the second story...
Hello internet, welcome to Film Theory!
Forcefully opening your eyes to the mind-scarring truths hidden in all your favorite movies.
So Netflix has really is really hitting out of the park recently, isn't it?
Between the 'Choose your own adventure' movie "Bandersnatch", and the totally-not-"A Quiet Place"-rip-off "Bird Box",
there's been a lot of binge-able theory fodder coming out of the ol' *Netflix Sound DUN DUNH*
And while "Bandersnatch" might seem like the one that's more up my alley,
considering the video game theme and all that,
it's actually "Bird Box" that I wanna tackle first, mostly because the movie had one question that I think we all want answered:
what the heck was the monster?
To catch you up, "Bird Box" follows a group of people trying to survive a world wide catastrophe
in which people are driven to kill themselves after they witness some 'thing.'
In order to survive, you have to keep your eyes shut, or else wear a blindfold,
leading to this iconic imagery from the movie, and all these other really dumb "Bird Box" challenge videos on YouTube...
It's a really cool concept. Just like noise was the dangerous element from "A Quiet Place",
sight is the thing that gets you killed in "Bird Box".
But the frustrating thing about the movie is that you never actually get to see the monster.
It's never made explicitly clear what exactly is driving everyone to this point of madness.
So that is my goal today, to use all the clues that we see (and don't see) throughout the movie to rip off the
blindfold and expose the "Bird Box" monster once and for all.
Let's look at what we know. From the opening moments it's made clear that when most people
see whatever it is that they're seeing, they lose control and, within a few
seconds, look for the nearest garbage truck to stand in front of, burning car
to hop into, or pane of glass to leap through. But this effect isn't just
limited to in-person appearances. Greg, in the highest stakes game of FNAF ever,
watches security cameras, sees the thing, and immediately knocks his own block off.
It's important to note though that this isn't true for everyone.
About midway through the movie, we learned from Gary that there are some
people who've seen it and don't immediately off themselves.
"These psychos from Northwood..." "It's a mental institution for the criminally insane."
"They took us outside and they forced our eyes open so that we would have to look
at the creatures." It seems like all these people are either criminals or were
already insane prior to looking at the thing. And rather than dying, they're
instead left to worship it, serving as prophets trying to trick or force
everyone around them to open their eyes and behold this thing of beauty.
So, beauty must be in the eyes of the beholder since these are the images that
Gary draws of the thing after he's seen it. The other reactions we get from
people who see the thing include:
and
It's not outright terror it's just more confusion. And lastly, we can deduce that whatever it is does have a physical form,
considering that we actively see it casting shadows and setting off a car's
proximity sensors in an early scene, but it also has limited ability to actually
interact with the world, considering it can't open doors or pull off blindfolds
itself, instead relying on its devotees to do the work for it. So that's a lot of
information, but where's that leave us? Well, the movie gives us a list of
possible explanations to test in the form of Charlie. "You got world religion,
mythology, it's full of mentions of demons, or spirit creatures, that takes on
the form of your worst fears or deepest sadness or your greatest loss." Except
we know that that isn't true of the "Bird Box" creature, considering the early
responses of
and
Those responses don't scream "oh, this is my greatest fear!" or "oh, this is the worst
loss I've ever experienced!" More just like "oh, this is it huh?" So that one might
not have worked out, but don't worry, Charlie has a lot more hypotheses that
we can put to the test.
- mythology. All different names, but the same thing: the end of us. Man Charlie,
I know it's the end of the world, and I know this is all for your book but
you're even more melodramatic than I am. Many of the entities you just mentioned
don't mean the end of us, plus you've lumped together a lot of spiritual
things that are very different and all very wrong for the situation that you're
currently in, so let's quickly knock 'em off the list one by one. Aka Manah comes
from the Zoroastrian faith, one of the oldest religions that are still in
practice today, with its origins in the Middle East, and according to the
"Encyclopedia of Demons in World Religions and Cultures", he's the
personification of sensual desire and lust. He corrupts your morals and is said
to cause people to sit back and watch as evil prevails. So if everyone in "Bird Box"
were busy getting their "woohoo" on in the streets, then maybe he'd be the one at
work here, but clearly that's not the case, and therefore he is clearly not our
demon. Surgat is another one that he mentions that is also really easy to
eliminate. Coming out of the Christian occult, he's known as 'the one who opens
all locks', which directly speaks to his demonic power: the ability to open any
lock in the world. This makes him a fantastic Mr. Beast to get possessed by
if you're clumsy with your keys, but definitely not the culprit of a movie
where the entity that's killing everyone is befuddled by a simple door handle.
Moving on, the Puca is an Irish mythological creature that shape shifts
into different animals and plays pranks on humans, like turning into a black
horse and taking people for a spooky scary ride, but beyond that it doesn't
appear to be all that violent. Seeing it certainly doesn't cause immediate death,
and there are plenty of stories where the Puca actually gives good luck.
Another easy elimination, which leaves us with the Chinese Huli-Jing, and
honestly this one seemed like a good fit... at first. The Huli-Jing are nine-tailed
Chinese fox spirits with the ability to shape shift,
often taking the form of a person's dead relatives. They're able to make people
believe the opposite of what's true, like a spirit who convinces you to take off
your blindfold and see them because they're beautiful and they're immortal,
but that immortality requires them to consume human souls. A lot of things
could really work here in the case of "Bird Box." It seems like you can make a
solid case for 'em being our mystery entity, except here's the rub:
they can pass through walls. Well, send another possibility through the shredder.
So Charlie in the movie took a lot of shots and missed 'em all. Maybe he should
abandon that writing project of his and instead go back to his former job. Seems
like he had a lot more success there.
So now, it's my turn, and honestly, after
looking at all the various behaviors of the "Bird Box" creature, no one explanation
can truly encapsulate it all. That said, I do think that we can pinpoint the two
lores that have combined to create the apocalypse that we see in "Bird Box." For
the first, let's look again at Gary's pictures. At first glance, these just seem
to be a bunch of random spooky pictures, but upon closer inspection you can
definitely see some key themes emerging. First, the idea of exploding eyeballs,
which is his artistic representation of the process of the pupil fracturing
every time someone sees these entities. So with those pictures eliminated,
as well as the ones of just generally scary or screaming faces, this is what we're
left with: a bunch of pictures of monsters. Let's call them 'Horny', 'Tentacle
Face', and 'Elephant Nose.' Let's focus on Tentacle Face here first. It looks a lot
like Davy Jones from the "Pirates of the Caribbean", or it looks a lot like a
creature that one would describe like this. Quote:
If you're familiar with your horror history,
you'll know that Tentacle Face belongs to none other than the Lovecraftian
nightmare Cthulhu, a name that I'm sure we're all vaguely familiar with but
might not know a whole lot about, so let's take a minute to talk
about him. Cthulhu, created by author H. P. Lovecraft in his short story 'The Call of
Cthulhu', is what's known as a Great Old One, a god-like entity that came from
space and now sleeps under the oceans of Earth, waiting to be awakened. But not
only does fish face fit what we see in Gary's little art project, listen to how
the creator of "Bird Box" describes his monster. "There's a teacher who mentioned
that a man would go mad, lose his mind, if he were to attempt to fathom infinity...
...became like a monstrous concept to me, all right. So, so at some point I started
to think of infinity or something the human mind can't assimilate as a monster,
and what if that idea was actually, like, personified? So, on your front porch
infinity is on the porch swing outside swinging. Infinity is out there, and if
you opened the door..." Mind you, this interview is from way back in 2015, from
the earliest days when his book started to get attention, and long before the
author realized that he needed to be a bit more mysterious in the way that he
talks about his story. So the monster, as he saw it in his original novel, was
inspired by infinity. That's interesting, considering that the main theme of the
Cthulhu mythos is human insignificance when confronted with the idea
of infinity. Look no further than the opening lines of 'Call of Cthulhu', which
outlines this exact premise. Quote:
End quote. Now, if that still doesn't sound
like it matches "Bird Box", just wait. You see, in Lovecraftian stories, when
humans come into contact with one of these infinite beings, like Cthulhu, they
go mad. Their brains aren't able to comprehend the magnitude of what they're
seeing, and they literally go insane, but it also doesn't apply to all humans.
A subset of people become worshipers of the Old Ones just like we see in
"Bird Box". To quote from 'Call of Cthulhu':
And that's just Cthulhu.
Lovecraft has a whole series of monsters in his bestiary that matched the other
drawings that we're seeing. Elephant Face? That's a lot like the design of Chaugner Faugn.
Horny? Definitely close to the gods servants named Nightgaunts. So we
have creatures based on the concept of infinity that have massive size, match
Gary's drawings, inspire cults of devoted worshipers, and possess faces
that literally drive people insane. Monsters of the Cthulhu mythos match
practically all of our requirements. Practically. You see, the Cthulhu
explanation misses a few major marks. First, humans are to Cthulhu what insects
are to us: nothing. We can't be bothered. He's too busy living his best life under
the sea alongside Aquaman and Ariel. That would explain why it shows no interest
or urgency in opening doors in "Bird Box", but Cthulhu also wouldn't be found
chasing around a few humans on a 42 hour boat tour. It's just a waste of his, and
quite frankly, most of the other Lovecraftian monsters', time. The bigger
issue here though is the "Bird Box" creature's ability to harness the
power of the dead. Up until this point, I've been dancing around one key issue here:
the fact that the entity can mimic the appearance and voice of family members.
And not just people it was responsible for killing either. In the opening
moments of the movie, we meet, and quickly lose, a woman named Lydia. As she sees the
monster, she calls out:
The twist is that Lydia's mom has been dead for five years, long before this
thing started attacking Earth. The movie doesn't bother to explore this, but to me
this is a huge detail that's critical for understanding the lore behind this
thing. It's also critical to know that it's not restrained to mimicking just
the dead. In an effort to trick boy and girl into removing their blindfolds,
the entity mimics the voice of Mallory, our protagonist, who is still very much alive.
So what's happening here? But before I tell you the other half of this
theory, do me a favor and remove those blindfolds for just long enough to hit
that subscribe button. We have a lot of other cool horror movie theories headed
down the pipeline, so if you've enjoyed this one, which it seems like you have
making it this far, then subscribe to get notified of when we cover ways to defeat
horror villains, like we did with Michael Myers not too long ago, or predict what's
gonna happen in upcoming horror movies like "Us", which is a theory that should be
coming out in a couple weeks now. If you're interested, do me the favor, hit
subscribe. It helps out the channel a lot. Thank you so much. And now, with that out
of the way, let's finish this mystery up. While a Cthulhu-like monster seems to be
the physical being that people are seeing here, where are these additional
powers and motivations coming from? Well, there's strong evidence to suggest that
these elements are inspired by The Rapture, the event in some Christian
belief where the faithful, both living and dead, are taken up to meet Christ.
To use the original Bible verses, 1st Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 16 and 17, quote:
Consider this: what if Lydia, calling out to her mom, is actually seeing her dead
mother in the afterlife? And if Tom really is calling out to Mallory at the
end of the movie, encouraging her to open her eyes and join him in the afterlife?
All of these souls seem to be caught up together, just like in The Rapture, where
they would be encouraging others below them to join. If that was truly the
case, and you have all these worthy dead people mixed up together like a big ol'
yarn ball, it would be a beautiful sight, just like those left behind say that it
is despite their drawings suggesting otherwise. Speaking of those left behind,
why are only criminals left behind on Earth? Well, because they didn't honor
God's commandments and don't merit going up to heaven. They're not rapture
material, you could say. And not only does it explain that, but this theory also
gives clarity to a detail that's easy to overlook: why these delusional prophets
insist on opening the eyes of their victims instead of, you know, just killing
'em. I mean, if the monster truly wanted these people to just kill off the rest
of humanity, why wouldn't they just do it? Why resort to forcing their eyes open?
It's so the victims can bear witness. In the Christian faith, a lot of emphasis is
put on bearing witness to God's power. Isaiah 43, verse 10:
Even Gary seems remorseful that he kills
off Douglas without him getting to SEE the entity.
"Sorry that you didn't get to see. It is beautiful. So beautiful..."
How about the whole 'not opening doors' thing? Revelation 3:20:
and I hear you, I totally recognize the concern too - what about
everyone taking their own lives? If this is a Rapture situation, isn't that a
cardinal sin of the church? Yeah, yeah it is. Absolutely. However, this is possibly a
Rapture-like situation we're talking about. Maybe Rapture rules are in
effect. I mean, think about it. Typical depictions of the event are a
bunch of bodies just kind of rising up to the heavens, but that doesn't really
make a whole lot of sense, does it? Maybe the real rapture is just those who are
chosen answering the call to free their spirits by abandoning the flesh, and
doing stuff like garbage truck hopping is the fastest way to do it. You may have
also noticed the odd motif of pregnancy. You see it with Mallory. You see it with
Olympia. Is it a coincidence then, that when
referring to the day of Rapture, the Bible specifically refers to it coming
on like labor pains to a pregnant woman? 1st Thessalonians, chapter 1:
It's a weird coincidence, right? Now obviously, there's an elephant
in the room: why would the blind be left behind during a rapture scenario? And
yeah, the meek shall inherit the earth. I dunno, not a perfect theory. Like I said earlier,
I don't think it's any one monster or one religious belief happening here.
A rapturing Cthulhu - a literal octopus Jesus - is really the closest we can
probably get. There's just a lot of weird specifications that this thing needs to
fill, and in the end it's really more like an original creation for the
purposes of the story, which, gotta say, is never a bad thing.
What? People coming up with an original thought for a change? Go figure. And heck,
at the very least my explanation of an octopus Jesus today is way better than
what they were gonna put in the movie. Yeah, that veiny reptile baby was an
early version of the monster that got cut. I got to admit, for as frustrating
as not seeing the monster was, not seeing the monster was a whole heck of a lot
better than that. But hey, that's just a theory. A Film Theory! Aaaand if you want to
see more horrific Film Theory action, click the box on the right to see how to
beat Michael Myers. Or, if you want to see something that's a bit closer to home,
check out our series on Salad Fingers. It's the creepiest animated thing that
you're gonna see today. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few more endings that
I gotta get in "Bandersnatch". I'll see you next week.