HATCHING (2022)
Finnish horror finds young Tinja (a wonderful Siiri Solalinna) caring for a bird’s egg after she is forced to put its wounded mother out of her misery. The egg starts to grow to an unnatural size and soon hatches into bird-like creature. The animal endears to Tinja and she to it, until it becomes obvious it’s means of pleasing and protecting Tinja are quite lethal.
Creature feature from Finland is directed by Hanna Bergholm from a script and story by she and Ilja Rautsi. By giving Tinja a pair of self-absorbed parents (Sophia Heikkilä and Jani Volanen) it makes the girl sympathetic, and also believable that the child could keep such a creature in her room unnoticed, except by her brat of a little brother (Oiva Ollila). The creature is an interesting design and portrayed by some nice old-fashioned prosthetics and proves to be very intelligent, as well as, quite dangerous. There is also an unnerving caveat of Tinja having a mental connection with her surrogate child and having seizures and visions when it kills. They also feel each other’s pain. The creature she dubs “Alli” becomes a conduit to releasing Tinja’s inner turmoil. It makes for a tense and sometimes disturbing monster movie with some effective gore once “Alli” starts to viciously protect Tinja and also begins to transform into something quite startling. Altogether an impressive horror feature debut from Hanna Bergholm.
-MonsterZero NJ
MonsterZero NJ's Movie Madhouse 