I’m going to need you to keep pace with me, because this movie doesn’t stroll—it dives. I got an early screener of The Thing with Feathers, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. This one is absolutely an art film. And I mean that in the purest sense. It’s cerebral, symbolic, beautifully strange, and shaped by horror elements that creep in rather than pounce. If you’re into the kind of horror that gets under your skin more than it jumps from behind a door, you’re the target audience.
I want to clarify, for those that would pick up on that, I am saying that in the most literal way. It is cerebral and symbolic, unconventional and beautifully grotesque. I don’t just mean that by the visual elements and creative camera work but in the overall structure, build, horror elements that slide and weave in at an alarming pace. The Thing with Feathers is about human emotion; it is about that struggle within ourselves to compartmentalize.
The Story
The Story: The protagonist is called “Dad.” Yes, his name is Dad. He is a widower with two young boys and a broken marriage that has been smothered by grief from the moment we are thrown headfirst into the insanity of what his daily life consists of. And that is the key word here… thrown. We don’t know anything about this man, but we do not have the luxury to dally in that fact for very long because, here, too, comes the crow-who, by the way, is NOT a real blackbird strutting around the yard in any capacity whatsoever. Dad has a large crow following him around… a full-body human-sized, at least, if not bigger, body covered in feathers and fur-creatures at all times in this movie- that has to be symbolic. In fact, I realized immediately upon seeing this character for the first time that, here, in this instance, what we were going to be led to understand, this version of ‘the crow’ absolutely could not be taken at face value.
The crow harasses, pokes, and teases Dad with this heavy emotional baggage, with a constant mental and emotional pressure, but there is a tinge of pseudo-clarity within this madness. The crow is your manic-depressive demon-devil-guide-whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and I have to be honest with you, I was not sure I liked this interpretation, or any, at first, but by the end, I fully understood why they went so hard on this uniquely grotesque and surreal crow creation. The crow was a manifestation of his grief. Messy. Angsty. Violent. Emotional. Random. Necessary. Do with that what you will but here is what it is for sure.
The Film’s Language: Claustrophobia IS a Language
The director of the film, Dylan Southern leans heavily into the idea of telling a stylized story, creating and building a world that just feels cinematically claustrophobic. The shots of the inside of Dad’s house feel tightly framed often uncomfortably close. There is no cushion here, no comfort zone, no distance created, because grief does that to us. Grief invades. It stifles, compresses, and takes away our soft edges. The cinematography screams theses sentiments in a way that, in itself, is one of the best choices made in the entire story-telling process.
Production design went dark- darker shadows, muted tones and a coldness to the environment and feel of the entire house he occupies. The environment he feels trapped in mentally and emotionally as much as physically. It was again, one of the strongest thematic story-telling choices I have seen to-date.
Cast & Crew
Speaking of that Benedict Cumberbatch performs an absolute emotional asskicker of a role where nearly every piece of storytelling comes in visual form. The way he manipulates the space around him, the tension of his face… his eyes. It is a performance built on presence, and he has it in spades.
The 2 child actors that play his sons, Richard and Henry Boxall, who are as talented as they are adorable –need to be given a solid nod as well. Both are young, incredibly gifted, and have to deal with some heavy weight with grace and beauty. They serve as the film’s backbone and keep the emotional ballance clear cut even when all around is getting surreal.
Themes that Really Made Me Feel
Grief is messy, unpredictable, and personal. That’s it. That is the absolute message of this film and it is not trying to dress it up or save it because it can’t and that is the point. This film, in its horror elements will not and does not bow to normal human emotion… why should it? The crow is not there to comfort Dad with a neatly written up bow on a tight and structured ending.
Instead, he is there to tear away and shake every loose rope Dad has constructed for himself in an effort to self-isolate from his own pain. The crow is a reflection of what happens when we bury our demons rather than work through them, even when the process of doing so aches more than it feels healing.
Final Thoughts
I gave The Thing with Feathers 3.5 out of 5 stars. I have seen several attempts at this variety of surreal, dreamy, emotion based horror and whilst there have been glimpses here and there of artists ‘getting it right’- for me at least, this one stands above a lot of others by tackling such a ‘visual story’.
So, if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary – something to make you think and stay with you for more than your typical creature-feature flick check it out. Honestly I would love to see how a lot of people interpret this piece. It will be in theaters this weekend so do yourself a favor and go to a show and let me know what you think!
