Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hatching’ on Hulu, a Delightfully Cracked Creature-Feature Satire

Gooey-fresh on Hulu, Hatching is the story of a little girl and her demonic speckled egg; it arrives via Finland and first-time feature director Hanna Bergholm, who shows a nicely demented eye for mucus-y practical effects, while writer Ilja Rautsi aims to crack open the facade of suburban society and show the rotten yolk inside. I know – I’ve failed you. But rest assured, avoid all those money-shot-riddled trailers and their spoiler reveals, and this movie won’t!

HATCHING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Somewhere in a woodsy postcard of a Finnish suburb lives a family whose budding derangement is nurtured by a woman we know only as Mother (Sophia Heikkila), an influencer with a blog titled Lovely Everyday Life. If she could, she would surely prioritize suckling her Internet Presence over her two children, who function as props for her meticulously edited videos featuring naught but putrid, idyllic phoniness: painted-on smiles, staged gamboling across sun-dappled lawns, a house swamped with sheer gauze and decorated with dozens of shades of white and only white. Just another day in the life of privileged Aryan mannequins! Please admire and envy them!

One can’t help where one is born, however, so pity young Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) for being trapped in this faberge-egg existence. She’s maybe 10 years old, and Mother’s chosen form of oppressive competitiveness for Tinja is gymnastics. Is she good? Sure. But good enough? NEVER. A competition looms, and if Tinja doesn’t make the cut, Mother just won’t know how to spin the concept of failure on her blog! One day, a blackbird whams into the sliding glass door and Tinja opens it and the bird flies in the house and breaks a dozen glass things (don’t worry, there are hundreds more) and Tinja captures it in a blanket and Mother cracks its neck and Tinja drops it in the compost bucket but it’s not dead and it escapes and Tinja finds it in the woods suffering greatly and making terrifying noises and so she puts it out of its misery with a rock and blood splatters on her white dress. And right next to the poor bird with the smashed head is a nest with an egg in it. A delicate, vulnerable, egg. Pity the egg, for it is motherless, but haven’t we seen a situation where not having a mother might be preferable? Please wrestle with that thought for a moment.

But bless her, Tinja is a sensitive soul. She takes the egg home and warms it beneath an enormous stuffie bear. As the egg slowly grows, subplots crop up. Her brother Matias (Oiva Ollila) is clearly not the preferred offspring around here. Mother introduces Tinja to Tero (Reino Nordin), a handyman who’s also her “special friend.” By that token, it’s no surprise that Tinja’s father (Jani Volanen) is a steamrolled non-entity. New neighbors move in, and the little girl with the little dog may be a friend for Tinja, who doesn’t seem to have any. Tinja struggles to land cleanly at the conclusion of her parallel-bar routine, so Mother makes her practice until her palms bubble with painful blisters. And then one day, the big egg cracks and we see, from Tinja’s point of view peeping out the door of her wardrobe, a pulsing bloody membrane. A claw bursts through. The thing is big and ugly and spindly and slimy and birdlike and also humanoid, with dead eyes and a beak and teeth and talons, and Tinja loves it, she loves it so. And maybe something finally truly loves her back?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: If E.T. procreated with Cronerberg’s Brundlefly, you might get this thing.

Performance Worth Watching: Without revealing too much, Solalinna has her work cut out for her in this role, and she executes it bravely and convincingly.

Memorable Dialogue: “Everything is its fault!” – a somewhat decontextualized line in which Mother shows an alarming lack of self-awareness

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Happy Mother’s Day – this surely won’t end well! A skilled and inspired filmmaker, Bergholm has crafted a wicked little creature feature about the complications of motherhood and daughterhood that punches some obvious satirical-observational buttons about modern life – is social media-induced perfection psychosis an official medical diagnosis yet, or just a convenient movie plot device? – but is nevertheless so very entertaining. There’s perverse glee to be indulged in watching the villainous Mother’s cruel, selfish, scrupulously arranged life degrade to the point where a long, viscous string of snot dangles tantalizingly from her nostril. We want the snot. We root for the snot. We wish the snot would stay there forever, a viscous and ropey reminder of her great parental failings.

The film’s manipulations are as transparent as its secretions: How can you not sympathize with a poor little girl Barbied into a life as a joyless and hectored social outcast, tormented by her mother’s flagrant hypocrisy? The film also functions as a very gross coming-of-age tale in which Tinja’s milquetoast father stays mum when he believes she’s likely had her first period; and her own motherly instincts soon kick in when she gives the critter a bathy-poo, affectionately brushes its feathers or hair or whatever the f— it is, and chews up and regurgitates fistfuls of bird seed so it may eat. Perhaps one day it will return the favors? The buildup is succulent, fiendishly funny and laden with body horror of medium-strength ick. The frenzied payoff isn’t quite as muscular, and follows a path similar to other horror films of its ilk, and I concocted a kicker scene that would have further twisted the knife oh so grimly.

Our Call: Horror fans scrambling for something enjoyably gruesome will be thrilled with what Bergholm fries up here. For people with thin shells, Hatching won’t go over easy. For the rest of us, it might be egg-xactly what we’re looking for. With many apologies, I suggest you STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.