Birdemic: Shock and Terror

When a movie starts with music that grinds your ears, standard movie- maker font, 10 minutes of random shots from the valleys of Hollywood and an unknown B-movie director that claims he's the "master of romantic thrillers", you know you're in for one hell of a ride.

I don't really know if this movie is a joke or not, if they actually went in full force with the intention of actually making a great film with their 10.000 dollar budget, clearly they did not. When the actual film starts, the camera is so horrid I thought the cameraman was drunk, or if I was unwillingly intoxicated. Anyways, I had to check my earphones after a couple of minutes, because the sound suddenly stopped and popped up at random, looks like the sound-mixer of this movie probably is deaf or some sort of modern day Hellen Keller.

Let's say something about the acting.. if there is any. I felt my heart wrenching when the protagonist started reading his lines, his act is already so wooden after two minutes of screen-time he'd fit right in the Ents from the "Lord of the Rings"-trilogy. When an actor can't even walk straight without showing signs of having something rectangular shoved up his rectum, there's something wrong.

After about 45 minutes of clapping (yes, see it for yourself), a love story that makes the Twilight-saga seem like "The Notebook" and "Titanic" combined, dialouges that are from another planet and all-in- all all I'm thinking: Is this movie the "Shock and Terror" the sub-title proclamates? 'Cause I haven't seen a f*cking bird yet!!

When the birds arrive.. No, I don't even care to write about it.. I feel ashamed of myself. I feel like laying down in the shower with my clothes on and cry while the cold water is running on full.

This movie basically makes Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" seem like the new "Schindler's List". Enough said.

Where does one start? How can you mentally digest something like Birdemic? I am still in shock. I have seen some shitty movies in my time. But Birdemic, friends and neighbors, is the worst movie in the history of film-making, on this planet or in any other dimension for that matter. It is bad, OMG, right off the scale on the shitometer. The acting? Poor Alan Bagh, is he a living, walking wooden plank? Special effects? I swear, the birds are cardboard cutouts dangling from strings. For some reason, they explode when they hit something. Why? Why is that? Can't somebody explain, for freak's sake?

Everything stinks so very gaggingly. A rhesus monkey with a camcorder poking out of its arse would do better. Beware, my friends, beware of this abomination that is Birdemic.

Rod runs into former classmate model Nathalie. Global warming and blah blah. Birds attack.

Horrible acting. Horrible writing. Badly stilted dialogue. Ill-fitting music. Horrible directions. Long boring non-scenes. Bad special effects. It's hilarious for about two minutes as it smacks your face all at once. Then it's intermittently funny as new levels of awfulness occurs. This is an incredibly bad movie. It's a student film at best. The bad sound design gets annoying. The squawking mixed with planes on bombing runs is as terrible as it gets. I'm comfortable giving this movie one star. The laughs are not generated deliberately. I'm laughing at how bad this is. I do want to give this a pity point. I can't. I can't. One point for the effort. These people tried. They're not good but they tried.

Given that "Birdemic" has been blasted by many critics, I think I should say something positive about it to start off with. The scenery of Half Moon Bay is agreeable, for one thing, and Ms. Moore has at least a modicum of charisma; also, anyone who appreciates a stylish blue hybrid Mustang rolling along in a stately manner gets to savor that very sight in many lingering shots. All positive aspects of this film.

Less positive aspects of this film are legion, so much so that I'm reminded of my wish that IMDb.com would allow a vote on a scale from 1 to 100 rather than 1 to 10 (in which case "Birdemic" would rate at least a 3 out of 100 for the reasons mentioned, and perhaps a 4 for meaning well (though the message about global warming comes across in a preachy and ham-handed manner)). Still, something about the profoundly amateurish quality of this film makes it feel a little unfair to rate it at all ~ in much the same way that it would feel wrong to grade a term paper on the basis of some rough notes jotted down before writing the paper rather than the paper itself. This film very much reminds me of a rough draft ~ a sort of rough visualization of what the film would have been if the producer had more resources at his disposal (thus making the upcoming larger-budget sequel all the more intriguing).

Yet, I wonder if this film might have been less entertaining if it were better made. If it featured better sound, editing, writing, acting, direction and special effects, it might just be a forgettable homage to "The Birds"; its very flaws elevate (or should I say depress?) it to a special level otherwise occupied by a few special films like "The Room" and "Manos: the Hands of Fate" ~ the legendary realm of films that are so bad they're good. So, giving it the benefit of the doubt as a real film and not just a rough draft, I tender my vote of 1 out of 10 and hope that other fans of this film will also give it an appropriately low vote and insure its rightful place on the Bottom 100 (once it gathers the requisite number of votes).

Don't be fooled by the rating. You have to watch "Birdemic" at some point.

This movies outshines "Troll 2" in every respect. It puts "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "The Room" to shame. Imagine a movie that would be created solely to give film students a paper topic on how NOT to make movies. Every conceivable error has been made in making "Birdemic." At first, you simply won't be able to believe that the film is not a spoof. But if you read about the film and about Nguyen, and if you take a few moments to watch the additional material on the DVD, you will soon agree that this was just a misguided effort on the entire production team's part.

The sound is the most outstanding example of sheer incompetence. The director clearly understood what Foley is, since the gunshots have all been added post-production, but I guess they just didn't have the time or money to dub the vast majority of the film after shooting. And it needs it. Badly.

The acting is uniformly terrible. Not bad. Terrible. Alan Bragh doesn't even rise to the level of fourth grade pageants. Whitney Moore is cute as a button and is aided by a bit of camel-toe in at least one scene, but she's the best of a poor lot. All the supporting cast is "give your financial backers a small part" bad.

If you want to explain blocking, editing, framing, sound markers, continuity, reverse shots, and other film terms to your friends, this is the film to use. None of it is done correctly.

While the CGI (and I use the term in only the broadest sense) birds are hilarious, my favorite scene is the "retirement" scene. I think that the word "retirement" is used six times in just three lines. Watch for it. It's hard to miss.

BUT...it's strangely watchable. In contrast to many bad movies, it's not boring. Consider it a train wreck that you simply can't tear your eyes from. Even the boring scenes (and there really aren't that many) have some aspect (poor sound, hilariously unrealistic dialogue, odd things going on in the background) that fascinate. You'll be giggling and poking your elbow into the side of the person beside you.

So, go rent it. Really. You won't regret it.