Five years back, I vented. I was disappointed and frustrated, and thought the future of cinema centered on and created by women looked bleak. Thankfully there have been examples of progress since, and the filmmakers of this year’s Sundance Film Festival have me hoping yet again and excited for what’s to come. Let’s dig into two coming-of-age stories that could not be more different, but that beautifully, creatively, and terrifyingly capture the experience of a young girl trying to make sense of the world.
You Won’t Be Alone is not a traditional horror film. In fact, it’s not a traditional genre film of any kind. Its lyrical narration makes it more of a poem, a meditation even, on life and death, motherhood and childhood, women and men, all wrapped up in the legend of a young witch in 19th Century Macedonia trying to understand how to move through a world not meant for her. As she learns the ways of her curse from her mother-slash-captor, it’s not long before the young witch resists and goes out on her own, taking the form of different creatures and people until she finds her way.
I’ll admit, it’s a jarring pivot if you’re looking for traditional horror, even for me. Yes, there’s plenty of gore, mystery, and mayhem, but this film is no scary movie – it’s an emotional drama. It’s unforgiving in its portrayal of the mother-daughter relationship, and offers a metaphor for how damage, trauma, and anger can be passed on by women through the generations. And yet, the ultimate message is one of hope, of survival despite the danger, of the promise of emerging from the ashes. Ultimately this film is just what we need in the midst of an unending pandemic.
Director Goren Stolevski creates a masterpiece here. His unrelenting close-ups leave the talented actors no room for error, and his sweeping shots of forest, farm, and fauna are as much an ode to nature and our relationship with the earth as the story is an homage to humanity itself and our connections to one another through time.
SpecialK Verdict: Raw, terrifying, and beautiful all at once, You Won’t Be Alone is a prayer—not to a higher power, but to the sheer beauty of the messy, painful, and joyful human experience we all share. See this one with patience and an open mind and you won’t regret it—catch the second screening after 10am ET on Monday, January 24, or wait for the U.S. release, scheduled for April 2022.
Where You Won’t Be Alone is on the drama end of the horror spectrum, Hatching throws us into the world of comedy and satire. An Instagram-worthy perfect Finnish family of four finds their world turned upside down as a bird unexpectedly enters their home and shatters their fine things, just as the mom shares a devastating secret with her daughter. When the daughter finds the wayward bird’s egg, she takes it in as her own. She cares for the creature that emerges while she navigates the tectonic shifts in her relationship with her own mother, and begins to realize that the world is not as crisp and clean as social media might have us all believe.
Kudos to Director Hanna Bergholm, who insisted on a female protagonist out of concern that good cinema has a dearth of complex and convincing female characters. The story captures all the nuanced joy and disappointment of realizing that our parents are imperfect, and that ultimately, we have to determine right and wrong for ourselves as we make our way forward through the world. Both hilarious and cringeworthy, this film will have you 
laughing at one moment and retching the next. While it suffers from lackluster child acting at times and can be a bit over the top, this coming-of-age tale is still a winner that bodes well for the future of female filmmaking.
SpecialK Verdict: Hatching is a creative romp worth a watch and a laugh—catch the online Sundance screening after 10am ET on Monday, January 24, 2022.
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