Sundance 2022: Hatching Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Hatching is a new thriller horror film from the countries of Finland and Sweden that just debuted at Sundance. While the film doesn’t stick the landing, the first act and the setup are quite enthralling, making for a decent little creature feature.

Hatching follows a family of four, of a mother (Heikkilä) and father (Volanen), their daughter Tinja (Solalinna) and her brother Matias (Ollila). Things start to go awry for them after a black crow flies into the living room and causes damage but that was only the beginning of their ordeal. After finally subduing the bird, Tinja came across an egg the dead bird left behind and took it home to care for it. From that, she noticed the egg getting bigger and bigger until it hatched, finally revealing what was inside. What that was was certainly not what most audiences will be ready for thus putting them on a wild ride that they will not be getting off of until this baby bird grows up and leaves the nest.

From a technical standpoint, the film is excellent. The costumes to the production design are all fantastic. The acting was also very good across the board with Solalinna as Tinja being the standout. As a film, Hatching never gets too scary, but the tight script and the sub 90 minute running time keep things moving at a decent pace until the end. While it may not quite reach the heights of such Sundance horrors like Hereditary or other eastern European creep fests like Lamb or Midsommar, its originality, visuals and storytelling keep the yolks from breaking, making this omelette turn out quite nicely. Might need a little salt though.

still courtesy of Sundance

(original review)

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Russell Miller

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