Finnish horror flick ‘Hatching’ cracks open grotesque tale
From Finland comes the Latvia-shot Sundance selection “Hatching,” another horror film about the horrors of puberty and the changes forced upon the human body and psyche. Yes, it’s also another coming-of-age film. But this one is genuinely disgusting.
Meet Tinja (Siiri Solalinna). She’s a pre-teen gymnast as lithe as a sapling and working hard to please her perfectionist mother (Sophia Heikkila), who dominates her mild husband (Janni Volanen). Rounding out the seemingly ideal family is Matias (Oiva Ollila), a little brother who likes to roam the family home wearing a simple white paper mask with holes poked in it for his eyes. Mother has a blog titled “Lovely Everyday Life,” which is as silly and boring as it sounds.
The family’s happiness is jolted when a black bird, perhaps a raven, flies into the home and causes a lot of destruction before Tinja captures it and Mother then shockingly wrings its neck. Later, Tinja bashes the stillmoving bird to a bloody pulp with a rock in the nearby woods and then finds a large egg. Tinja takes the egg back to her bedroom to hatch it.
Soon, Tinja has a mysterious new friend/pet she dubs “Alli” after a name in a song she sings. Alli, who is at first a grotesque, slimy and smelly puppet-like figure, develops through the course of the film into something else entirely. It also wreaks a lot of bloody havoc.
Directed by first-timer Hanna Bergholm, “Hatching” is a fairy tale about a young woman’s struggle to control her own impulses, which can be violent and destructive.
The film is unafraid to show us things that are revolting and are meant to be horror film stand-ins for all the genuinely disgusting things about adolescence. “Hatching” addresses teenage eating disorders in a completely unique way I must say.
The crazy wallpaper covering every inch of the family home is the first clue that something may be up with this household. It’s no surprise that Alli’s first human victim is another gymnast, whose days of swinging on a bar are over.
The film owes a major debt to the master of body horror David Cronenberg, who has a new film “Crimes of the Future” coming. “Hatching”
resembles his early, attentiongetting effort “The Brood” (1979) in many ways.
Screenwriter Ilja Rautsi, whose other credits include “Helsinki Mansplaining Massacre,” can be too obvious. In addition to the children already in the story, he throws in a baby, the daughter of Tero (Reino Nordin), the carpenter that Mother is having an open affair with. It’s so open that Mother takes Tinja, and in effect Alli, to stay with them for a weekend. Watch out baby Helmi (Miroslava Agejeva).
“Hatching” can be too predictable at times. But it’s also a real shocker.
(“Hatching” contains disturbing images.)