Editorials
How the Cast of Netflix’s ‘Bird Box’ Learned to Play Characters Who Cannot Use Their Sight
The cast of Bird Box had to play characters who don’t see, but they’re not blind. In the world of Bird Box, there is an epidemic of something in the sky that makes anyone who sees it commit suicide. The survivors quickly learn to cover the windows and make any urgent trips outside blindfolded.
Sandra Bullock and Trevante Rhodes play two of the survivors. They studied with blind coaches to create a post-apocalypse where using your eyes could kill you.
“Sandy met with someone very, very early on,” Rhodes said. “We were coached on the proper means in which to maneuver blind. For me, honestly, it was kind of liberating in a sense in that it was just something I hadn’t done before. I haven’t done much but it was an opportunity to step into a space that was completely new to me and it was fun. It was liberating.”
While the characters in A Quiet Place had to learn to function silently, the stars of Bird Box had to learn to get around blind, which of course real people do every day.
“We had an extraordinary coach who’s not sighted,” Bullock said.
“He walked into my house and said, ‘Your wall is three feet. This ceiling’s about nine feet.’ Took him outside, he goes, ‘There’s a fence. There’s some kids toys right here.’ I was like how, how, how? What he gave us was the tools and the tricks that they use, the cane, the clicking. Make a sound, you can hear the sound bouncing off. Shuffle your feet, you hear what’s close. You hear an open field, you can hear that, feel it. So by the time we got on set, you navigate the scene.”
The cameramen were looking through the lens, but they also had to adjust to filming “blind” actors.
“We had an amazing steadicam operator, Roberto [De Angelis] and his job was just to get out of our way should we switch directions which happened a lot. [Director] Susanne [Bier] just let it go. I said, ‘If I fall, let it happen. If I hit something, let it happen unless I stop it.’ I only stopped it once when I drew blood.
Bier attested to Bullock’s gung-ho attitude. At one point she has to paddle two children in a canoe down a river blindfolded.
“We had a few stuntmen who were seriously terrified because Sandra was kind of unstoppable,” Bier said.
“I think they made sure it was never dangerous, but it was really daunting having Trev, having Sandra, at times having the kids. The kids had sort of semi-transparent blindfolds but Sandra did not have any transparent blindfold and she was literally falling over trees and things like that. Having said that, the most important thing of the blindfold is really communicating. I think for actors, the eyes are a tool. It’s like painters’ brushes. It’s a little bit like telling a painter, ‘Make this beautiful painting but you can’t use your brushes.’ So they were literally left with communicating without the most important tool they have which was kind of a testament to their brilliance. At all times we are emotionally engaging with them but they cannot use their eyes which is pretty amazing.”
Bird Box is in theaters and on Netflix December 21.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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