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.

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.

I just got done watching Birdemic for the first time, I knew it was made on 10,000 dollars and it is regarded as one of the worst movies of all time. This same day I also watched The Happening and The Crawling Eye (MST3K version) so maybe I was feeling masochistic. This movie was all around bad in every aspect. It looks like it was shot on a fairly cheap digital video camera and it's obvious that the sound was recorded from the microphone built into the camera instead of a boom mic. I know that because the sound is very awful, the actors have to be pretty close to the camera to be heard right, and there's way too much loud background noise which in post production they played a lot of public domain elevator music to drown out the background noise. The worst audio issue was when they film on the beach because the sounds of the beach are 5 times louder than the actors voices.

The movie itself is very slow paced, the first half of the movie is just the main guy meeting his dream girl and building their relationship. The problem is that nobody in this movie can act and the writing was pitiful so what we get are very bland characters, not even vanilla more like tofu bland. We get no reason to care about these people in any way and to make them less likable the main guy has to talk about solar panels, hybrid cars, global warming, and even the war in Iraq as much as he can. The script is almost a love letter to Al Gore. This feels like an eternity where it goes from his boring job that he is way too enthusiastic about, his obsession with a greener world, and his dates.

The second half of the movie is when the birds finally go on a rampage. Lots of 2D computer generated birds that fly around in circles and attack their prey by hovering in place while moving their wings up and down and making the same noise looped over and over the whole movie. Somehow these berserk eagles can set house on fire as well as kill people in one swoop. The couple ends up meeting another couple who lets them ride in their van, this van has everything from handguns and two AK-47 assault riffles with unlimited ammo (I'm guessing the van has Game Genie,) as well as medical supplies, and anything the plot requires. Most of the movie has these people gunning down birds and searching for survivors. The survivors they meet all have long boring monologues about how it isn't the eagles we should be afraid of, it's global warming and mankind's use of fossil fuels that is responsible for this disaster.

As far as the action goes, it's about as lame as the trailer makes it look. When someone dies it's just a bird hovering in front of the person and they fall down with blood make up on them. There's also some really pointless scenes there just to raise the body count like a man who pulls a gun on them (even though they still have an assault riffle that they seem to forget about for the rest of the movie)who wants their gas, which they say cost them 100 dollars a gallon. There's a whole lot of nothing interesting going on. At least companies like Troma can take a 10 cent movie and throw in lots of nudity, over the top gore, and comedy. The people behind Birdemic have the worst CGI effects since the old Star Trek movies and long speeches about the environment. If you watch it, bring some friends and laugh at it because it works in that regard. Other than that it's Duck Hunt: The Movie.

There are no words that come to mind after seeing this film. Travesty, horrific, absurd, ridiculous, and mind-numbingly stupid all come to mind but none of 'em quite describe just how awful this "film" really is. To see where everyone went wrong, let's break it down!

1. It takes 45 minutes until the actual plot begins to develop. By this time, the majority of viewers have fallen asleep or have taken their own lives.

2. The actor who plays Rod, Alan Bagh. He makes me miss Nicholas Cage. NO NOT THE BEES!!! AHHHH!!!

3. The birds. What do they do exactly? Nothing. The birds come down and fly directly in front of the victims face. Then they die for reasons only criminally insane director James Nguyen knows. God help us.

4. Read my parental advisory

5. "Hey I thought I told you to stand back. These birds are contaminated"

6. What is wrong with Rod's friend? And why can't he get a good looking girlfriend?

7. The dialogue. It's like watching a poorly translated foreign film. "I like you and because you are pretty to me" "I thank you this words they make me happy" "Yaaaaaayyy..."

8. This quote: "Why would birds do something like that? Why would they just attack" "......I don't know"

-------The good?

1. Thank god for Whitney Moore in lingerie. The only believable thing about this movie was that she got a job at Victoria's Secret.

And that's my review. Go see it. I guarantee you will never see a worse film.

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).