Les oiseaux II

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,

Alright, we can see the director wasn't expecting anything, because he used the infamous alias of Allan Smithee, so he probably made this film for a paycheck. But what a waste, if I had all the equipment he did, I would basically say to forget the script, and make it good, anybody could have done this. Besides with the film Beaks already made, did we really need to see a sequel to "The Birds"?

On a scale of 1 to 10, "Birds II" gets a 1! ( I wish we could vote zero)!

Daphne Du Maurier's short story has inspired another attempt to tell the tale using the medium of film, with its advantages of visual images of the unusual behaviour of birds. Personally, I prefer the book, with its advantages of subtlety, but film has the important characteristic of attracting more viewers than books do readers. On the other hand, this particular film has the special disadvantage of telling the same story, transposed to another coastal village, as a deservedly famous film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Needless to say, The Birds II: Land's End does not manage to recreate the atmosphere of The Birds, but the acting of the family, Brad Johnson and Chelsea Field as Ted and May and two less well-known actresses as their daughters, at least compensated to some extent for a surprisingly weak unfolding of the tale of the aggression of birds, and the mostly irrational reactions of people to the unexpected. However, the dialogue with people in the village could have been much wittier.

The one feature which was better than the much more famous film of this short story was the landscapes. Alfred Hitchcock concentrated on suspense, whilst this film has time to dwell more on aesthetics. Admittedly, this still does not bring it anywhere near to the class of The Birds, but it is still quite enjoyable.

Why, one might ask, should a short story that has already been filmed so well be filmed again. The answer, in my opinion, lies in not being tied down to one set of images, so that the short story regains the elements of conjuring up a reader's images from his own imagination. The Birds II: Land's End offers the reader an alternative set of images to the ones which have been so ingrained into people's minds. It is also interesting to note that Jamaica Inn, Rebecca and Don't Look Now have all been filmed more than once.

Although the film is weaker than The Birds, it is a passable filming of Daphne Du Maurier's short story.

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.

I've never been a huge fan of the original Alfred Hitchcock classic "The Birds," but it was well-made annd compared to this looks totally flawless. "The Birds II: Land's End" has to be one of the most shoddily produced nightmare projects of all-time -- it's a gruesome, chilling (but in a bad way) made-for-TV movie with no suspense. That's always a bad thing when you're talking about a so-called "thriller." No, "The Birds II" plays more like a modern-day gross-out slasher horror flick.

A modern-day REMAKE of "The Birds" could work with a great director behind the project, but this sequel doesn't only feature one of the most untalented casts ever (with Brad Johnson leading the pack along), but a director by the name of Rick Rosenthal, who has a couple "Halloween" movies to his name and a huge score of television shows and pilots.

Now get this. "Halloween II" was crap, right? And Rosenthal left his name in the credits.

He called Alan Smithee on "The Birds II." That shows just how unbelievably bad this film is.

From the lacking suspense to the poor acting to the ridiculous dialogue to the terrible special effects to the borderline stupid plot line (ooh Land's End, how clever!), "The Birds II: Land's End" will rightly be remembered as one of the worst misfires of all-time.

0.5/5