One of the first things I do when a film festival drops its programme is scan the catalogue for the titles that leap off the page, which is almost like picking goofy horse names for the Grand National – sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. For Missouri’s Panic Fest, the title tucked into the line-up that immediately jumped out was Christian Carroll’s micro‑indie project The Burning of Broken Beak (the synopsis helped too). Horror rooted in Indigenous folklore is one of my easy go-to’s, and it’s also the backbone of another Panic Fest title, Marama – a brilliant movie I caught at Fantastic Fest in 2025.
Maori photographer Emma (Briar Rose), is in the middle of her latest New York art project when she receives a call from home telling her that her uncle has been murdered, and she’s been summoned back by his lawyer to claim her inheritance. Joined by her surfer girlfriend Jackie (Lydia Peckham), she returns to her late uncle’s property – a massive former power plant that, in classic horror‑movie fashion, she must live in for thirty days to claim. Things quickly unravel when Emma is besieged by visions of a creature known as Broken Beak, and other family members higher up the inheritance chain begin dying in mysterious, avian‑themed ways. Filling out the ensemble are: Paula (Katlyn Wong), her uncle’s former live‑in help; a police duo eager to pin the deaths on Emma; the family lawyer Robert Shaughnessy (Jonny Brugh); Emma’s siblings; and billionaire Peter Finch (Joel Tobeck), whose Blackwater‑style company does whatever it pleases – environmental or human cost be damned.
Genre‑wise, The Burning of Broken Beak is tricky to pin down as it doesn’t really play as a horror movie until the final act, and before that it leans toward a mystery – though not in a way that will reward viewers who crave intricate puzzle‑box plotting. Yet while its narrative lineage may be that of a mystery, it’s clear from the outset where the story is heading, but whether that’s a shortcoming is debatable because, as the title suggests, Broken Beak is the real focus, not the inheritance squabble – or at least not in the way you’d assume. The inheritance in Carroll’s script (it really is a true multi‑hyphenate production), is the legacy of colonialism, and as with many stories told from an Indigenous perspective the sins of the father pass down the line, so in the eyes of Broken Beak and a just reality, that inheritance is inescapable.
The Burning of Broken Beak tells an eternally relevant tale — whether about gentrification, profiteering, or the cultural ramifications of colonisation.
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So what, or who, is Broken Beak? Told through a near‑Babadookian storybook rhyme, we’re shown a simple but striking piece of animation depicting what early European colonisers did in Aotearoa (the Māori endonym for New Zealand). It’s a familiar story from all over the world of death and destruction for anything that stood in the way of their idea of “development”, and as a protective avatar for the natural world, Broken Beak – the mythically huge, near‑humanoid bird with the ability to speak – became a lightning rod for the invading Europeans’ savagery. We don’t just see the creature in animated form either as an actor also embodies it throughout the movie, whether in graphic, vengeful moments, or in quieter scenes where it converses with Emma.
Unfortunately this is where The Burning of Broken Beak falters as although the costume design is exemplary, the movie shows too much of it – both in how often the creature appears, and in how brightly it’s lit. As the old adage goes, the less you see of a “monster” the stronger it becomes, so Broken Beak would have been far more powerful shrouded in darkness as seeing this humanoid bird in full, well‑lit UHD exposes every seam in the makeup, draining the impact.
It’s always satisfying to watch the elite get their come‑uppance, especially when delivered through forces older than modern man, and the first two thirds of the movie offers an engaging blend of Indigenous folklore and the blindness of justice – something made more compelling when one of the potential targets isn’t white like the marauding colonisers, but Māori. Yet while the cast are uniformly strong and the writing allows each character to feel distinct, the overexposure of its titular entity reveals the movie’s shakier footing with horror. The ending is inevitable, and the way it arrives is a little too in line with what you’d expect, an example of how the film surprises in some places, but in the moments where it matters most it plays too close to standard expectations. Still, The Burning of Broken Beak tells an eternally relevant tale about gentrification, profiteering, and the cultural ramifications of colonisation. Everyone involved will surely go on to greater things as there’s a confidence here, even in its missteps, that suggests this won’t be the last time we hear from the voices behind it.
THE BURNING OF BROKEN BEAK HAD ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT PANIC FEST 2026
