"The worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself" -Friedrich Nietzsche
PREDESTINATION (2013) dir. the Spierig Brothers
PERFECT BLUE パーフェクトブルー (1997) dir. Satoshi Kon
HATCHING (2022) dir. Hanna Bergholm
US (2019) dir. Jordan Peele
YOUTH IN REVOLT (2009) dir. Miguel Arteta
TRIANGLE (2009) dir. Christopher Smith
LOOPER (2012) dir. Rian Johnson
SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010) dir. Edgar Wright
BLACK SWAN (2010) dir. Darren Aronofsky
THEY CLONED TYRONE (2023) dir. Juel Taylor
ENEMY (2013) dir. Denis Villeneuve
Hatching (2022 Finnish Horror Film) through use of almost exclusively high quality practical effects created one of the most terrifyingly convincing/original monster designs I’ve seen for a film this century.
Easily on par with Alien and Jurassic Park in quality, both in effects and story.
I got more blocks made for my guild mystery quilt today. Uh, I watered plants. Oh, my prayer plants started blooming for the year, they usually start late February/early March and bloom almost daily until about October. They're so cute, little white flowers with a touch of purple.
Anyway, semi-random horror picks, starting with some Finnish body horror. Thanks, library!
Hatching (2022)
Oh god, no you gotta let it fly out a window not...that.
I watched Hatching (or in the original Finnish, Pahanhautoja) a few days ago and I simply cannot stop thinking about it! It’s common for me to go on the internet and read up on artsy horror movies after I finish them, but for this movie there’s just so little available online about it. Minimal reviews and synopses on YouTube, nothing on Reddit, etc.
…Luckily Tumblr has a little on here about it! I saw others notice the intermingled themes of blood and motherhood, I noticed that as well. Someone pointed out the scene where she was shopping for birdseed potentially represents her shopping for menstrual products. Interesting interpretation.
One thing I haven’t seen anyone talk about yet, though, is the scene right at the beginning of the movie where the mother is singing her son to sleep and he just keeps interrupting her yelling “more, more!” Like she’s **a songbird stuck in a cage for his entertainment**. The daughter then joins and the two of them sing together for the son/brother. He remains unsatisfied…..
Later when the mother’s affair is revealed, one line stuck out to me a lot. She mentioned how refreshing it was to do something for herself for a change, something that doesn’t involve being in service to someone else. A lot of the discussion online tends to paint the mother as a selfish narcissist who cares only for herself and her image. I’m not disputing that. However I do think there’s a more nuanced, deeper analysis to be made about the mother’s selfishness. A lot of mothers have spoken about feeling drained by the expectations and pressure of the role of “mother”, losing your identity in parenthood, struggling to find time and energy for yourself outside of the role of mother. I do think there’s something going on narratively in that direction. The mother in Hatching is simultaneously over-selfish and gives too much of herself to others. And without going into spoiler territory, the ending of the movie kind of points in that direction as well, given the fate of our main character, the daughter Tinja.
There’s so much pressure on women to be absolutely perfect, always, even behind closed doors and in so-called safe spaces. This movie is so, so, so good and kind of therapeutic in that regard. I just kept thinking about how women are supposed to be perfect… but womanhood is bloody, it’s feral, it’s the wilderness, it cannot be tamed.
Edited to add: the mother’s acrylic nails look like bird talons
Hatching is simply astonishing. This hits in so many places, about growing up forced to hide who you are, about killing the part of you that feels angry, about how abuse passed down through generations.
The whole thing is 87 minutes which is bullshit because this was a wall to wall emotionally brutal two hours and I refuse to believe its possible to have accomplished that much any faster.
i feel like pahanhautoja / hatching (2022) dir. hanna bergholm should come with a disclaimer or something that says “if you have an unhealthy or bad relationship with your mother, proceed with caution.”