Bird Box on Netflix: THIS is why we never see the monsters in Sandra Bullock thriller

It’s about a mysterious presence roaming the Earth, and anyone who stares directly at it is somehow driven to commit suicide. The survivors of the initial outbreak figure out how to survive: they have to roam around wearing blindfolds. But the audience never actually sees the elusive monsters – and in a new interview, director Susanne Bier has explained why.

“The creatures mess with your mind; they tap into your deepest fear,” she told Radio Times.

“And, because they tap into your deepest fear, we can’t ever see them, because that deepest fear is going to be different whoever you are.

“For me, the most exciting point in any thriller has always been that point right before you see the monster, right before you see the villain.

“That has always been the most frightening, and I wanted the whole movie to have that atmosphere.”

She added: “To be completely honest, every time I see a monster in a movie I kind of go, ‘Is that all?’”

Bird Box is based on a novel, but a few elements have been changed – such as the addition of a love interest for Bullock’s Malorie in the form of Trevante Rhodes’ Tom.

“I felt it was very interesting making a contemporary female hero, a real one,” Bier explained in the same interview.

“And I think Sandra and I felt strongly that we wanted her to have a moment of a love life. We wanted her to have someone who she could be close to and it could feel real.

“And actually it’s kind of interesting that you asked: we did a lot of test screenings, and everybody has kind of felt that it was a very organic, real love story.

“I think it’s interesting because, given the clichés of male and female, and given what is conventional, it’s actually rather ‘unconventional’.”

Bird box has a 65% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus reading: “Bird Box never quite reaches its intriguing potential, but strong acting and an effectively chilly mood offer intermittently creepy compensation.”

Bird Box is now streaming on Netflix.