It’s always promising when a horror short film gives itself a title as straight up and out there as ‘The Thing That Ate The Birds‘, and accordingly, this film certainly doesn’t disappoint. It packs a lot more into its eleven-minute running time that a Thing which Eats Birds though, so whilst you get what it says on the tin, it doesn’t exactly stop there either. The film manages a balancing act between the kind of grisly fare suggested by the title, and a surprising amount of character and back story – indeed, more than you often get in a feature, which is quite some feat.
Filmed on location in North Yorkshire – let’s declare our bias here as this site is run from North Yorkshire, and say it is one of the most beautiful places in the world – Abel (Eoin Slattery) is a gamekeeper with a significant problem. Something is killing his birds before he can, and he’s perplexed. Whatever it is – his assistant Jake (Lewis Mackinnon) suggests foxes or stoats – it’s making short work of them, their remains bleeding out on the ground in front of him. This would all be bad enough, but it seems that the fate of his birds isn’t Abel’s only problem. The film is very good at including little visual clues in its shots, and so the fact that Abel wakes up on the couch instead of in bed with wife Grace (Rebecca Palmer) is one thing, but you can quickly guess that the half-drained tumbler of whisky on the table in front of his impromptu bed may be an issue too…
With the situation at home clearly as dire as his work dilemma, Abel makes the decision to focus on the latter, which perhaps strikes him as easier to solve; it’s a decision which leads on quickly to a run of other decisions, proving that his instinct wasn’t correct. Now, it’s at this point in the film that you are de facto invited to see what ensues in a straightforward, horror film way or in more symbolic terms. On balance, the film feels richer when understood through its symbolism, though it works perfectly well either way – another compliment for director/writer team Sophie Mair and Dan Gitsham, who have ensured that it works on both levels, with neither interpretation feeling like a cop out. What you do see on screen invokes palpable dread; there’s enough malevolent mystery here to ensure investment up until the end (and no tone-shifting determination to pack in a simplistic all-loose-ends-tied-up conclusion, either. The film hangs onto a few questions, but parts ways with the audience via a grisly, almost darkly funny final frame.)
There’s some BFI heft behind The Thing That Ate The Birds, which probably helps to contribute towards the film’s quality in style and appearance; the balance between sweeping, wide frames which convey the scale of the landscape and the very intimate, even claustrophobic domestic scenes works very well indeed. All in all, this is an impressive short film which leaves one final question hanging, a question which works however you read the rest of the film: how responsible is Abe for what happens here?
Sound good? Why then, you can take a look at the film for yourselves here.