Die Vögel II - Die Rückkehr

I watched this movie tonight on ABC Family channel. I thought that the television station cut off the ending of the movie until I read some of the comments on this database and realized it actually ends that way. What a disappointment! I only decided to watch it because Brad Johnson was in it. I'll give it a 2/10 instead of a 1/10 since BJ was in it!

I came on IMDb to check the details of this movie just after having seen it. To my surprise its genre was "horror" and not "comedy". But then, I saw Alan Smithee on the director's credits, a guarantee for good laughs (the MST3K way of course). It is absolutely ridiculous from beginning to end, so I enjoyed it very much. The dog's funeral was a real high point, I almost fell off the couch laughing!

Based on the reviews here I expected a terrible movie, and while it wasn't the best movie I have ever seen, it certainly wasn't the worst either. It held my interest and some of the bird attacks were actually pretty scary. As others have stated, the ending was my only real disappointment, it was way to abrupt and left me thinking, "what"? Overall, if I were home alone and bored on a rainy night I would watch this again.

Okay, you probably knows how dreadful this movie is, with its ending that can only generate a big, fat "huh ?" from those who didn't fall asleep (Though this might be the only way to stay until the end !). The saddest part was that Tippi Hedren was sent at the French Cinemalia festival in France in order to, hem, promote this thing. Having interviewed her, I can say she still is as fascinating as when she was Hitchcock's muse and deserves so, so much better. Burn, Hollywood,

Right, well after just having sat down to watch the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds" once again here in 2022, then I also had stumbled upon the 1994 sequel titled "The Birds II: Land's End". Granted, I had never heard about this sequel, so I didn't even know that there was a follow-up to the 1963 movie.

And since I hadn't already seen "The Birds II: Land's End" before, of course I opted to watch what writers Ken Wheat, Jim Wheat and Robert Eisele had to offer here. It wasn't a whole lot they offered actually, as "The Birds II: Land's End" was essentially just a re-write of "The Birds", just set in a different location and with new characters. The events and the narrative in this sequel was just too blatantly copy and pasting the storyline from the 1963, with some minor changes added. So this was very much lazy script writing. And having just sat through the 1963 movie, then "The Birds II: Land's End" felt very redundant and pointless.

Sure, the effects in "The Birds II: Land's End" were much better than the effects in the 1963 original movie, no doubt about it. And that improvement definitely added something to "The Birds II: Land's End", but it just didn't manage to overshadow the fact that this was just a re-write of the 1963 movie.

The acting in "The Birds II: Land's End" was good, though I was only familiar with three cast members here; that being Chelsea Field, James Naughton and Tippi Hedren. Sure, it was nice that they had managed to get the lead actress from the 1963 movie, that being Tippi Hedren, to participate in "The Birds II: Land's End", but why as another character?

"The Birds II: Land's End" is an adequate enough movie if you have not seen the 1963 original movie "The Birds" from director Alfred Hitchcock. If you have seen the 1963, then you can easily skip on "The Birds II: Land's End".

My rating of director Rick Rosenthal's 1994 sequel "The Birds II: Land's End" lands on a five out of ten stars.