Movies
‘Birdeater’ Gets New “Feral” Trailer and Poster Ahead of January Release
A bachelor party weekend transforms into an intense nightmare in Birdeater, and Dark Sky Films has unveiled a brand new Birdeater trailer and poster that emphasizes just how “feral” this Australian psychological thriller will become.
Dark Sky Films releases Birdeater in theaters on January 10, 2025.
“A bride-to-be joins her fiance’s bachelor party in the remote Australian Outback. As the festivities spiral into beer-soaked chaos, uncomfortable details about their relationship are exposed, turning the celebration into a feral nightmare.”
Watch the intense, almost hallucinatory trailer and get a peek at the poster below. While the film itself may be intense, it’s hard not to be amused that critics keep coming back to one word to describe this psychological thriller: Feral.
Directed by the filmmaking duo Jack Clark and Jim Weir, their feature has been described as a “horror thriller that represents a visually striking and daring debut from this Australian duo.”
Jack Clark wrote the screenplay.
Shabana Azeez, Mackenzie Fearnley, Ben Hunter, Jack Bannister, Clementine Anderson, Alfie Gledhill, Harley Wilson, and Caroline McQuade star in Birdeater.
I wrote in my review for BD, “Birdeater is an audacious reckoning with identity told through a relatable scenario gone very wrong. Borrowing a page from Wake in Fright, Clark and Weir’s feature debut examines heady concepts through confident filmmaking and subversion of tropes through horror techniques. The pair take care in their approach to tackling delicate topics like abusive relationships and wisely opt to expose that abuse doesn’t have to be physical to be bone-chillingly destructive. That restraint makes for a compelling, nail-biting watch, even if it never wholly veers into horror.”
Birdeater premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and earned the Audience Award for Australian Narrative Feature before making International Premiere at SXSW. Stephanie Troost and Ulysses Oliver produced, with executive producers including Ben Ferris, Chris Thompson, Jack Stephens, Jack Clark, and Jim Weir.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
You must be logged in to post a comment.