Imagine a sci fi/horror movie based upon the classic cuckoo-themed concept of brood parasitism, in which an egg laid by a cuckoo in the nest of a pair of unsuspecting warblers or some other little songbird species hatches into a young cuckoo that is much larger than the birds' own fledglings, which it swiftly evicts by pushing them out of the nest, and thereafter demands loudly and persistently from its beleaguered foster parents constant attention and constant food until it has matured and flies away. That is the fascinating premise of Vivarium, a decidedly dark, sometimes chilling, but thoroughly engrossing film whose DVD I watched on 31 August 2021.
However, in this cleverly-structured movie, which was directed by Lorcan Finnegan, based upon a short story co-written by him, and released by Vertigo in 2019, the cuckoo's unwitting foster parents are a young couple of our very own species, Homo sapiens – namely, primary school teacher Gemma (played by Imogen Poots) and her handyman boyfriend Tom (Jesse Eisenberg). They are tricked into rearing something that looks outwardly human but whose rapid growth, bizarre mimicking behaviour, deafening shrieks when demanding food or attention, and unnatural lack of normal human emotions swiftly reveal it to something fundamentally alien – in every sense.
Leading up to this unnerving scenario is the sinister luring of unsuspecting Gemma and Tom by a decidedly creepy estate agent called Martin (a frighteningly memorable performance in every sense by Jonathan Aris as one of the aliens in human-facsimile form) into what looks ostensibly like a new housing estate, named Yonder, only for them to discover too late, and to their total horror, that Yonder is actually an immense inescapable labyrinth of identical houses. Moreover, these are all seemingly empty, except for the one that they now find themselves abandoned in by Martin, who surreptitiously disappears while they are looking around it.
It is not long before Gemma and Tom receive on their doorstep the first of what will prove to be a regular series of parcels (although they never succeed in glimpsing who or what is leaving them). These contain supplies of familiar-looking yet totally tasteless food and drink. Their physical appearance has been accurately copied from real human food and drink by the aliens but without their having any concept of how they should taste, nor of the nutrients that they should contain. This explains why Gemma and Tom become progressively weaker as the days, weeks, and months of their trapped existence drag remorselessly by.
They also receive via the same unseen agency a box containing a human-looking baby but which swiftly grows into an exceedingly weird 'boy' (Senan Jennings, in a very fine, skin-crawling performance redolent of the unearthly children in the classic 1960 sci fi movie Village of the Damned, based upon John Wyndham's famous novel The Midwich Cuckoos, also inspired by brood parasitism). Moreover, according to a message on its box, if Gemma and Tom rear it, they will be 'released' from what is evidently a meticulously manicured yet wholly fabricated, unending vista of alien vivaria, or human death cells in all but name – a grim fact that they ultimately become resigned to amid the malaise and madness that gradually consumes them after realising to their horror what their alien captors mean by the word 'release'. Welcome to the stark, surreal, psychological nightmare that is Vivarium.
Yes indeed – be warned, you should not expect any lightness to break through either the fake clouds in the fake sky over Yonder or the foreboding, all-pervading emotional darkness of this disturbing, macabre movie's claustrophobic substance. Nor will any explanation be forthcoming regarding the origin or precise nature of the alien cuckoos utilising captured humans to rear their offspring (only once is a faint clue as to their true physical form revealed, in a short but shocking scene that is quite terrifying in spite of its brevity).
All that you need to know, and keep in mind throughout it, and which is emphatically signposted at this movie's beginning via a foreshadowing scene featuring the original feathered variety of cuckoo at work, is that Nature can sometimes be cruel, very cruel, and ruthlessly single-minded – especially when a species' survival is at stake...
Click here to pay a visit to Vivarium by way of an official trailer for it on YouTube, and give thanks that unlike poor Gemma and Tom, you will be able to exit it without being 'released'…
To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
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