[Event Review] Boston Underground Film Festival Features

The Boston Underground Film Festival took place this year at the end of March. We reviewed three feature films from the fest this year. 

Hatching (2022)

(Reviewed by Liz DeGregorio)

Hanna Bergholm's Finnish film falls into many categories, including body horror, creature feature horror and domestic horror. Siiri Solalinna stars as Tinja, a young gymnast who is pushed beyond her limits by her shallow and intrusive mother. Tinja finds comfort tending to a large egg, which eventually hatches into a bird that is fiercely loyal and protective of the young girl. Hatching combines vibrant visuals, a toxic family unit and an overzealous bird to create a moving and frightening story about what motherhood really means.

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Honeycomb (2022)

(Reviewed by Ariel Powers-Schaub)

Honeycomb is the directorial debut of Avalon Fast, and it primarily trades on indie charm and relatable teenage emotions. The story follows a group of friends, bored in their summer monotony. The girls set out into the woods to live on their own and form a new society, to enjoy more freedom. One of the most important rules they establish is “suitable revenge,” wherein the wronged party gets to enact revenge on the person who wronged them. As one can imagine, this escalates to acts that cannot be undone. Honeycomb is an atmospheric examination of how bored teenagers may see the world. 

Hypochondriac (2022)

(Reviewed by Liz DeGregorio)

Addison Heimann wrote and directed this psychological thriller, which tells the semi-autobiographical tale of a young queer artist whose childhood trauma begins to manifest in alarming physical ways after he begins receiving cryptic phone calls from his abusive and mentally ill mother. Hypochondriac is full of unsettling scenes that have viewers asking what is truly real, which is a perfect way to get into the mind of Will (played with endearing tenderness by Zach Villa), who is constantly wondering if he has inherited his mother's illness. Will's relationship with his boyfriend Luke (Devon Graye) further humanizes Will, who is afraid of what will happen if he lets himself become vulnerable with someone who truly cares about him. In addition to being a thoughtful film that keeps viewers guessing, Hypochondriac is also refreshing in its portrayal of queer people; Will and Luke are simply a gay couple, which is treated as something normal, and isn't either their defining characteristic or part of the issues at the heart of the film.

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