Broken Bird (2024) review: Think ‘May’ but distinctly British

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Did you enjoy Lucky McKee’s quirky 2002 horror comedy May? If so, you are in the right place, because today we are reviewing the distinctly British spiritual successor: Broken Bird (2024).

Flying Under the Radar

The story follows the socially inept and rather quirky woman Sybil (Rebecca Calder). Sybil spends her days creating taxidermy models out of roadkill and her nights attending poetry meetups. After accepting a position as a mortuary worker, she begins to develop an obsession with a man who works at the local museum. This obsession will soon turn twisted when a turn of events brings them together in a horrifying manner.

“This is a story that is going to feel extremely familiar to fans of the horror movie May.”

Broken Bird spent most of 2024 doing the festival circuit and finally hit VOD just in time for Halloween. It seems to be flying under the radar a little, though. Despite strong critical reviews dating back to said festival run, most people seem to have missed it.

It is directed by Joanne Mitchell and written by her frequent collaborator Dominic Brunt (Attack of the Adult Babies, Wolf Manor, Emmerdale). Mitchell brings along a few familiar faces from her previous work, namely Jay Taylor as the object of Sybil’s obsession, Mark.

This is a crew that have worked together many times before, often to fairly limited success. Broken Bird represents a big departure from that less than winning formula, though. This is a movie that’s legitimately worth checking out.

A Quirky Loner… and a Whodunit?

This is a story that, as mentioned earlier, is going to feel extremely familiar to fans of the horror movie May. Sybil is a bit of a quirky oddball. Like May, she shares a complicated relationship with the people around her. She enjoys retrieving dead things from the road and turning them into taxidermy ornaments. She also chooses a world of fantasy over reality.

Her frequent trips to the poetry nights at her local pub are punctuated by a firm disregard for her fellow poets and an overwhelming belief that she is the most talented person there. A belief most definitely not shared by the pub’s other patrons. She believes that things are turning around for her when she gets a new job and meets a man at the local museum. Clearly, however, fantasy is, once again, about to get in the way of reality.

Where this movie starts to separate itself a little, however, is in the multiple narratives. Broken Bird features a number of different story threads that all take place alongside each other. One of which being that of the disappearance of a child’s body and his mother’s search to find him. And the other being Sybil’s boss recently having lost his wife to cancer.

This lends the film an opportunity to venture into a few different themes. It becomes a whodunit complete with a police investigation and the detective work of a determined mother. As well as a tale of grief told from a couple of different perspectives. There’s quite a lot going on, here.

Sybil Shines, Even if the Story Doesn’t

These stories play out in a parallel fashion before coming to a head later in the film. Now, that sounds quite interesting and a pretty inventive way of doing things but, alas, the stories are all quite predictable. They still work well enough to keep you fairly engaged but they aren’t all that original. You will quickly guess where everything is going and how it will all culminate.

When it does culminate, it takes place in a grand fashion and with a ruthless disregard for the viewer’s intelligence that suggests a writer who was convinced that you had no clue what was going on. It’s a bit insulting, to be honest, and also begs a few questions surrounding Sybil’s ultimate motivation. You know? Considering what came before, and all. Suffice to say, this is a story that is lacking in surprises but still works fairly well.

A lot of why Broken Bird does work is down to Rebecca Calder’s fantastic performance as Sybil. She’s suitably quirky and has some excellent comedy timing along with some decent moments where the script does manage to shine. This is a movie that will probably make you laugh on a few occasions, despite not being an overt comedy.

It’s all awkward interactions, misunderstood gestures, and comical observations of a person who is ill at ease in the normal world. When Broken Bird is acting as a character study, it is quite interesting and fairly fun. I am a big fan of stories centred on quirky female leads and that element does work well. We need way more movies like this.

More Meander than Macabre?

Where the movie is much less strong is as an outright horror. This is a very slow film that meanders quite a lot during the early going. To be honest, that’s my only solid criticism of Mitchell’s otherwise strong direction. There’s a lot of needless scene setting that doesn’t add all that much to the story. The three competing narratives don’t always feel that comfortable together, either.

“It’s all awkward interactions, misunderstood gestures, and comical observations of a person who is ill at ease in the normal world.”

Despite how interesting of a character Sybil is, her story arc is pretty derivative and, as mentioned earlier, predictable. This robs the movie of reasons to invest as you know what is coming. When those things are considered, I can see a lot of people absolutely hating it. The reward for sticking with the often snail-like pacing is of questionable worth.

I should also point out that some of the scenes designed purely to shock don’t really work all that well. In fact, I would say a few of them felt massively out of place. Despite the troubling subject matter, Mitchell never fully leans into the macabre and repulsive in a way that makes those scenes feel organic. They are just shoehorned in to make you gasp.

Movies that feel closer to being a drama than a horror often struggle when trying to fit in moments that appeal to genre fans. Broken Bird would, perhaps, have been better served abandoning the need to shock and just leaning into the psychological.

Our Scoring Philosophy: A Fair Fight

Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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