Birdemic: Shock and Terror

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).

First of all, to approach "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" with any kind of hope of witnessing a good feature film is utter lunacy. "Amateur" is a word a thousand times too generous for this film's description. Even given its low budget of $10,000, the majority of which seems to have gone on car fuel, the film is a joke. The acting is unspeakably bad, the "special" effects aren't worth mentioning, the music is corny and inappropriate, and the film's editing techniques have all the marvel of a flip-book.

The only way to enjoy this film is to treat it as exactly that, a joke. The above faults of the film are so glaring that the film becomes one huge joke that you can laugh along to. However, even this joke wears thin pretty quickly, and you're left feeling quite empty, as if you've been cheated out of 95 minutes of your life.

Nonetheless, I am firmly convinced that it is the director James Nguyen who is having the last laugh, as he has created a film so notoriously bad that everyone wants to see it. Perhaps the joke is on us, and the director's intention was to see just how popular this film could be through its infamy. Even so, absolutely nothing can forgive how bad this film really is. It makes Battlefield Earth feel like Star Wars, and makes the special effects of 1933's King Kong look like those of Avatar. It is, quite simply, the worst film ever committed to celluloid.

Watching the trailer, I actually had a decent laugh, and thought it might be worth it. But having watched the finished product, the knowledge that somebody spent $10,000 making this ugly piece of garbage and then having the audacity to call it a film is infuriating, and actually quite offensive. People were PAID to produce this. With MONEY. I still don't believe it.

I don't know where to begin this review. It is a film that completely fails at every step of the movie making process. From directing, to acting, to writing, to camera operation, to scene structure, to pacing, to visual effects, to sound editing... The list goes on. I watched birdemic thinking it was a 'deliberately bad so it's funny' kinda movie. It's not. You can see the films director James Nguyan takes himself completely seriously with the global warming message jammed down our throats. I spent the majority of the hour and thirty minute run time laughing in disbelief that this movie exists. It is a film you have to watch, if only to know how to gauge a bad movie in the future. I was just wondering what fundamental error they were going to make next. Overall birdemic is a fascinating piece of work simply because it is truly awful cinema. So terrible that it's unintentionally hilarious. I would absolutely classify it as a must watch.

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.

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.