Jack Clark and Jim Weir’s Birdeater rides the barbed-wire line between horror and psychological thriller pretty closely, to the point where I’d be concerned for its metaphorical limbs if it were a person. It’s thin and sleek, the tale of a woman who follows her fiancé to his bachelor party in the Australian outback after an intense battle with separation anxiety. What begins as a (supposedly) good-faith effort between partners quickly spirals out of control as the other members of the party take it upon themselves to wreak havoc in any way they can, deteriorating their relationships and their sanity in the process.
‘Birdeater’ Takes Advantage of a Classic Horror Trope

Almost immediately, it’s easy to tell that Birdeater’s entire plot is predicated on one of horror’s classic blunders: going out into the middle of nowhere, with no one around to help, and expecting everything to be fine and dandy. Usually, that’s when the slasher would appear, weeding twenty-somethings out one by one, However, Weir and Clark forgo that, almost acknowledging that they, as storytellers (and as a result, their characters), know what kind of choice they’re making, and where it’s inevitably going to lead them, even without a pile of bodies at the end.
It’s a choice that keeps the film self-aware, even if the characters within it can’t see past their own noses as a result of ego and sheer stupidity. It’s an advantage that serves it well, in a world full of debut films that read as completely clueless when it comes to playing with typical genre conventions. Birdeater isn’t the most revolutionary horror film I’ve ever seen, nor is it tackling topics not usually covered by the genre. Still, confidence in taking on already-established tropes and ideas is infinitely more appealing than an attempt to stretch limits to half-hearted and weak results. It’s a film you should go into blind, and let everything wash over you as it comes, every frame like a gut punch. (Or, in the bucks party’s case, a spiked line of coke.)
I don’t quite understand why so many reviews called this film “feral” — to the point where it became part of its marketing — but it’s pure chaos of the highest order, which I suppose is the next best thing. Weir and Clark know exactly how to capture said chaos, presenting it as half-remembered fragments the next morning through the haze of a hangover, rather than sitting the camera in front of the actors and watching every second of the characters’ inevitable downfall.
‘Birdeater’ Manipulates Audiences’ Emotions to Terrifying Effect

Just as well though, they probably could’ve gotten away with that with the cast they gathered. Each member of the bachelor party is uniquely unsettling in their own way; from Ben Hunter’s classical douchebag Dylan, who goes out of his way to be a jagoff to just about every person he’s supposedly friends with, to Mackenzie Fearnley’s Louie, the bachelor himself who turns out to be significantly more manipulative than his fiancé (Shabana Azeez) thinks.
Together, they create an atmosphere that’s halfway between gut-wrenching fear and secondhand embarrassment. Trapped in the outback with nowhere to go, the party is forced to confront every awful development as it arrives, hindered additionally by adding drugs into the mix. There’s nowhere for them to turn, and the audience is essentially strapped into a chair alongside them, like being a witness to every traumatizing family dinner you’ve ever been to all at once.

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Pixie dust isn’t fixing this mess.

At some points, that forced proximity gets a bit old (by nature of age, some of the party’s arguments turn phenomenally petty). But, for the most part, it’s what fosters the fear that lies at the heart of the film. You can rationalize that monsters aren’t real, but this kind of fear of being confronted by the fact that your friends are actually pretty terrible people (and you might be too) sits longer in your chest than any kind of jumpscare.
“Boys Will Be Boys” Goes Terribly Wrong

It’s another example in what seems to be a rising subgenre these days: horror that has nothing to do with monsters, the occult, or even slashers, but the bone-deep terror of what normal humans are capable of when provoked. (Or sometimes, just because they feel like it.) Birdeater takes “boys will be boys” to its most terrifying conclusion, proving a fact that most women on the planet have been aware of their entire lives: that even the nicest, most soft-spoken men are capable of monstrous things when they want to be.
Birdeater isn’t without clear signs of a debut feature — long stretches of silence and a beginning and ending that don’t quite mesh with the rest of it — and it doesn’t quite stick the landing on what it’s trying to say about the consequences of toxic masculinity. Still, the heart (or rather, lack of it) is there. It sits in your chest like a cough you can’t get rid of, and there’s promise in its bones of what might come next for the Aussie directorial duo.
Birdeater is in theaters now in the US, and premieres on digital on January 17.

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Pros

Directors Jack Clark and Jim Weir manipulate chaos to spectacular effect.
The film’s cast is perfect for the story, emulating what happens when people betray one another.

Cons

Some aspects read quite basic & obvious as a debut feature film.

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Birdeater

Release Date

June 11, 2023

Director

Jack Clark
, Jim Weir

Cast

Mackenzie Fearnley
, Shabana Azeez
, Ben Hunter
, Jack Bannister
, Clementine Anderson
, Alfie Gledhill
, Harley Wilson

Runtime

113 Minutes

Writers

Jack Clark
, Jim Weir