Bird Box Barcelona (2023)
Film details
Horror · Science Fiction · Thriller · Àlex Pastor · 1h 52min
Synopsis
After a mysterious force decimates the world’s population, Sebastian must navigate his own survival journey through the desolate streets of Barcelona. As he forms uneasy alliances with other survivors and they try to escape the city, an unexpected and even more sinister threat grows.
Verdict
Extreme terror with mass suicides; problematic representation of the Catholic faith.
In-depth analysis
The sequel to Bird Box elevates the original's intensity to an unsustainable territory. The film depicts dozens of on-screen suicides in explicit and varied ways: jumps from heights, hangings, throat cuttings, and impacts against surfaces until death. This is not stylized action violence — it is a raw depiction of suicide as the central narrative engine. This alone renders it unsuitable for the vast majority of viewers.
However, there is another concern: the treatment of Catholic faith. The protagonist, Sebastián, and his former priest genuinely believe that the invisible creatures are angels and that forcing people to see them is to 'liberate their souls'. The film reveals that these 'spiritual' experiences (visions of ascending souls, encounters with angelic beings) are, in reality, hallucinations caused by traumatic brain alteration. The priest becomes the secondary antagonist, convinced he is serving God while causing deaths. While the film does not deny the existence of God, it presents faith as a cognitive vulnerability that the creatures exploit. For Catholic parents, this adds a problematic layer to already extreme content. Not recommended due to the brutal level of suicidal violence and its portrayal of faith as a weakness.