The Aviary is quite the mind-trip, displaying a unique take on psychological horror that turns the trauma of cultist mind-manipulation into an inescapable terror for its heroines. Starring Malin Akerman of Watchmen (2008) fame and horror/thriller maven Lorenza Izzo from Knock Knock and The Green Inferno, The Aviary‘s small but mighty cast does a stellar job at making sense of the madness within this script, written and directed by Chris Cullari and Jennifer Raite.

The Aviary begins with the heart-racing escape of two women — Jillian (Malin Ackerman) and Blair (Lorenza Izzo) — into a moonlit desert in New Mexico. Delivered from the clutches of a cult that claimed to free their minds but did anything but that, Jillian and Blair face the treacherous elements in search of a new place away from the controlling and increasingly dangerous behavior of their former leader, Seth (Chris Messina). However, their journey is soon interrupted by intrusive hallucinations and memories of Seth, revealing sickening truths that turn them against each other as they attempt to find a way out of the desert.

Though at times the script felt as though it was missing a proper setup of events, primarily in the beginning where it seemed like hallucination scenes were introduced out of nowhere, the film still managed to be coherent overall despite being a bit messy in its structure. Due to the nature of the film being a psychological thriller, the sometimes jarring pacing of the film drifting between reality and irreality on a whim may have been intentional, to subject the audience to a similar confusion as experienced by the film’s protagonists. The horror found within this film is unique, being that the menace is within their mind, planted there by their cult leader who does not even need to be physically present to inflict utter damage on the women, both physically and mentally, throughout the film.

The Aviary does a great job of showing the dangers of following the wrong leader, and the aftermath experienced from being subjected to mind control. Shedding the re-programming proves to be easier said than done, as The Aviary is filled with eerie scenes of hallucinations and flashbacks. These scenes are subtle, free of devices such as jump scares, and instead, leaning heavily on creating the atmosphere in these scenes through disorienting editing and excellently composed creepy music. Besides its musical score,  The Aviary was carried by the performances of Ackerman and Izzo who had great chemistry together — these aspects worked together to keep things interesting in a story that is a slow and repetitive hike through a desert, which I imagine could easily read as slow-paced for many audiences.

The Aviary is the kind of movie where things are not usually what they seem — it was not quite horrific or thrilling, but the psychological mind trips that this film sends its protagonists on are tense and fueled by a palpable sense of paranoia. Subsequent watches of the film proved to be beneficial to an understanding of this film, which made it seem better and better. Malin Ackerman and Lorenza Izzo were a joy to watch descend into their respective madnesses, and though the script had some technical hiccups in disseminating information in the most efficient way at times, The Aviary was, overall, an interesting watch and felt like a breath of fresh air as far as psychological thrillers go.

7 out of 10