Kadison 9 - Apocalypse

Recently, a couple of my friends watched the movie Bird Box for the first time. It’s pretty much about a mysterious entity that somehow causes people to go insane and die if they look at it. The film came out last year, and it was pretty popular for a while. It’s actually considered a thriller, yet it was the scariest movie I’ve ever watched to date. I’ve seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Shining, Chucky, etc., but the paranoia I felt afterwards didn’t last. However, with the Bird Box, I had nightmares for the next three or four nights. Part of the reason might’ve been because I watched it at a later time compared to most of the other horror movies I’ve seen. It also could’ve been because my friend and I went to bed halfway through instead of finishing the movie, which probably didn’t do me any favors.

The movie starts with reports of this mystery monster causing people to commit suicide in Russia, and they think it must’ve been a science experiment gone wrong. This seems entirely plausible to me; there must be plenty of different governments trying to one-up each other and secretly create dangerous weapons without the public's knowledge. I also find it pretty realistic that mankind (and the government) decided to mess with something we don’t (or can’t) understand. Later in the movie, one of the characters betrays the main character and kills almost all the survivors. This also seems accurate to me, as humans tend to be pretty selfish, especially in a time of crisis.

This movie made me realize how scared I am of apocalyptic events. Any films that include plagues, zombies, or catastrophic natural disasters terrify me. Even though I know these events are very unlikely to actually happen, I am still afraid of the possibility. There is nothing worse to me than being ripped out of the world I once knew and thrown into chaos, disorder, and worst of all, loneliness. The thought of having to go through any traumatic experiences like this alone gives me the chills. I don’t think I would be able to handle the stress.

If you watched Bird Box, what was your opinion on it? What do you think about post-apocalyptic movies or horror movies in general?