Warning: Major spoilers below for Bird Box Barcelona!Bird Box Barcelona features a major twist in the first 15 minutes that reframes the entire story and offers a unique flip of the Sandra Bullock original. 2018's Bird Box was a shock success for Netflix, with the modestly-budgeted chiller being one of a wave of horror films centered around the senses, like A Quiet Place or Don't Breathe. The movie took place in a world where creatures that can induce suicide in whoever looks at them suddenly emerge, with Bullock and her band of survivors attempting to reach a safe place.
Bird Box's monsters weren't the only threat, however. Instead of driving people to die by suicide, some people who see the monsters are overtaken by their "beauty," and seek out other survivors to force them to look at the creatures. Bird Box Barcelona is a spinoff with no ties to the Bullock original and opens with new protagonist Sebastián (Mario Casas) and his young daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard) trying to find other survivors nine months after the emergence of the creatures.
Bird Box Barcelona's Best Twist Happens 15 Minutes Into The Movie
Sebastián soon meets with a group of survivors who take him in and treat his injuries. He also encounters a survivor who blinded himself after being captured by a group of infected "seers" who tried to expose him to the creatures. That night the survivors all take shelter together in a bus, and that's when Bird Box Barcelona takes a shocking turn, revealing Sebastián is also under the sway of the creatures. He finds the keys to the bus and drives the screaming engers outside and crashes it.
He then forces any survivors who crawl out of the wreckage to look at the creatures. Sebastián doesn't see this as an evil act; on the contrary, he believes he's saving people as the creatures look like angels to him. His daughter Anna is also a hallucination, as she died months previously. This is a brave twist on Bird Box Barcelona's part, as the likable protagonist viewers have invested in is not only committing a horrible act, but he believes he's doing the right thing. This adds an extra layer of tension when he soon befriends another band of survivors.
Bird Box Barcelona's Twist Is A Flip On The Original
Bird Box Barcelona doesn't offer a lot of fresh twists, but telling it from the perspective of a "seer" is a smart narrative choice. It gives audiences the chance to experience the world from their POV, and why they're so obsessed with the monsters. In Sebastián's case, the will of the creatures is represented by his daughter's voice, who pushes him to "save" others. This character is also a reference to Tom Hollander's Gary, a survivor encountered by Sandra Bullock's group in the original Bird Box.
Gary was soon revealed to be an infected survivor who did his best to expose the group to the creatures. He failed to kill everyone, thankfully, but not for lack of trying. With Sebastián, Bird Box Barcelona essentially made that character the protagonist, and while Sebastián comes to see the error of his ways, he does function as a villain for the majority of the story.
