THE THING THAT ATE THE BIRDS AT SXSW

Sometimes short films take the cake at festivals and garner the attention they truly deserve. We here on FERNTV love looking at the work of the directors and their cast and crew. Their expression and working with limited time and resources sometimes makes a short more difficult to make. The more challenging the film is to produce and the higher the risk poses a greater chance for reward.

The Thing That Ate The Birds will be premiering in the Midnight Shorts programme at SXSW. It is a short horror film where every second count in its production. From the studios of Gunpowder and Sky and horror channel Alter comes a film the audience can relate to during these unsettling times.

Director Sophie Mair and Dan Gitsham pair in this character study of a man named Abel played by Eoin Slattery. The beginning feels like you are introduced into the climax of a slow burner feature or a middle of a series. It engages the audience as we learn he is a Head Gamekeeper in the North Yorkshire Moors. His patriarchial ways and bigotry are no longer serving him as he is on the path to self-destruction. In addition, his relationship with his wife Grace, played by Rebecca Palmer is also on the fringe.

Abel starts to notice along with young friend Jake, played by Lewis MacKinnon, that something is eating the grouse at a high rate. Thinking it is a fox or another animal, they both discover the thing that is eating the birds. Looking like a combination between the monsters from the movie The Descent and Cold Skin, the thing is at close range when discovered. Abel does not hesitate but to shoot the intruder to his land and drops more caps out of frustration and for good measure.

The Thing That Ate the Birds is a film that comments on the anxiety-ridden society that we now live in. Because of the major changes happening through Brexit, Far Right politics, oppression, random acts of violence even the pandemic, Abel’s behaviour is the result. This phase of transition is also concerning as it is causing the meltdown of this marriage between Abel and Grace. They no longer have the answers to their problems and the support is non-existent. Rather than seeking help for their situation, they are going to receive something else called hell.

The film also continues the folk horror tradition in which director Kier La-Janisse explains in her works and the anticipated documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched also premiering at SXSW. There are many elements in The Thing That Ate The Birds that make up this genre. Such as taking place in a rural setting like the North Yorkshire Moors. The sacrifices that are made like the death of Abel’s grouse. And above all, the backlash against pragmatic beliefs that would represent the intrusion of the thing on Abel’s game.

What it all comes down to in this short film is our treatment of the unknown and the uncomfortable. We often just like Abel go with our preconceived notions of what things are like and going to be like. When we become uncertain of our future, we panic like Abel or call it quits like Grace. And when something is intruding on the things you hold dear to you is when it begins to fall apart.

To call this monster in this film a “thing” is never a good thing. Just look at John Carpenter’s version The Thing, where it raises the fires of hell. In this industry, this should already be a rule of thumb. As you will see when you watch The Thing That Ate the Birds at SXSW.