El ataque de los pájaros

It's hard to condone a film that starts off with some muppet shooting pigeons for sport, but this film is so overwhelmingly stupid that it's hard not to enjoy it. Basically, it's The Birds only made by Spaniards and Italians. Which is probably why it starts with a guy shooting pigeons.

Basically, the birds are annoyed that man is damaging the Earth and are now looking for payback. Although we have countless shot of Flamingoes, Storks, seagulls etc any time there's a mass bird attack the films uses pigeons. You know, one of the least threatening birds of all. Fair enough, a couple of eagles show up to pull people's eyeballs out but it's pigeons all the way for this film.

You've got a reporter and her cameraman seemingly travelling all over the world trying to get to the bottom of all these bird attacks (and failing miserably) while interviewing people who've been attacked, like Aldo Sambrell and another guy who had an eyeball stolen by an eagle. Also the guy who was the husband of the junkie girl in the Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue is in this for about five minutes.

But what makes it so enjoyable? The bad acting, fluffed lines, the scene where the pigeons 'eavesdrop' on our heroes, the crap ending and the even crapper (but most welcome) epilogue. What about the guy having a heart attack in the middle of a bird attack? I can just imagine some Spanish racing pigeon enthusiast being bunged a couple of grand only to watch in horror as his pigeons are thrown at confused actors trying to look terrified. They probably just poured breadcrumbs all over everything too.

Ah yes, who could forget this little gem from the director who brought us such greats as NIGHT OF 1000 CATS and TINTORERA!! Birds are banding together into an unstoppable army to wipe out mankind. It's up to a news reporter (played by the gorgeous Michelle Johnson) and her cameraman boyfriend to stop them. But can they be stopped? Ridiculous and absurd from beginning to end and some scenes are stolen right from THE BIRDS, such as the birthday party scene. But it moves along at a clip and it's over before you really have a chance to hate it. What amazed me were the attack scenes. I wonder how they trained the birds to attack so viciously without harming the actors. As usual with a Rene Cardona, Jr. flick the plot is incoherent, the acting putrid, and the dialogue inane. But dig those attack scenes. And dig watching the beautiful Michelle Johnson, who's been absent from the big screen for awhile. Where are you, Michelle?

What a stupendous movie. So bad in every way that it is flat out hilarious. As someone else wrote - concerns over ACTUAL birds being harmed or killed during the making of this epic. Oh yeah! No doubt about it. You can actually see a crew member's hand in one shot throwing a bird at an actor. In other scenes to make it look like the PIGEONS are swarming a victim you can see the poor things have their feet tied or stapled to the actor's costume. Sheesh! Plus you can tell the money people behind the film told the director we need nudity (check) gore (check) a long para-sailing scene with a Thompson Twins late 1980's pop sound song (check) explosion (got it) and slo-mo shots of children in danger (you betcha)! This mess is very funny even though it doesnt mean to be. For lovers of Grade Z classics - check of BEAKS! Two Claws Up!

These include:

1.) Bad dubbing and phonetically challenged foreign actors.

2.) A TV news story entitled "Attack of the Killer Chickens!"

3.) Close-ups of birds pecking faces apart and pulling out eyeballs, leaving only blood-squirting empty black sockets.

4.) Gratuitous slow-mo flying and attack scenes.

5.) A dense globe-trotting blonde couple who take time out from the carnage for a PG-rated bubblebath/champagne kissy kissy session.

6.) Snappy dialogue reducing a worldwide epidemic of bird attacks to "feathered mutiny."

7.) An annoying little brat who runs outside during the middle of a bird ambush just to get her greedy little hands on a party horn...leading to several unnecessary deaths.

8.) Christopher Atkins talking to his penis.

In case you haven't caught on, this is a low-grade rip off of the 1963 classic which cuts back and forth, from different countries to different people running away from someone offscreen throwing pigeons at them. American actors Michelle Johnson and Atkins are in the main segment about TV reporters who travel around investigating various attacks only to get ravaged on a train, but the story also covers a bickering couple, their two kids and a girl in a bikini attacked at a beach and people at a children's birthday party (there's even a little Veronica Cartwright knock-off named Cathy!).

This film was also released as BIRDS OF PREY and was an international production that was filmed in Spain, Peru, Italy, Mexico, Morocco and Puerto Rico!

Score: 3 out of 10 (for scattered laughs)

Such an obvious ripoff of Hitchcock's movie. But Michelle Johnson is so hot. She's one of the best looking chicks of the 80s. Hehe chicks.