The Birds II: Land's End

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)!

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,

Right, well after just having sat down to watch the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds" once again here in 2022, then I also had stumbled upon the 1994 sequel titled "The Birds II: Land's End". Granted, I had never heard about this sequel, so I didn't even know that there was a follow-up to the 1963 movie.

And since I hadn't already seen "The Birds II: Land's End" before, of course I opted to watch what writers Ken Wheat, Jim Wheat and Robert Eisele had to offer here. It wasn't a whole lot they offered actually, as "The Birds II: Land's End" was essentially just a re-write of "The Birds", just set in a different location and with new characters. The events and the narrative in this sequel was just too blatantly copy and pasting the storyline from the 1963, with some minor changes added. So this was very much lazy script writing. And having just sat through the 1963 movie, then "The Birds II: Land's End" felt very redundant and pointless.

Sure, the effects in "The Birds II: Land's End" were much better than the effects in the 1963 original movie, no doubt about it. And that improvement definitely added something to "The Birds II: Land's End", but it just didn't manage to overshadow the fact that this was just a re-write of the 1963 movie.

The acting in "The Birds II: Land's End" was good, though I was only familiar with three cast members here; that being Chelsea Field, James Naughton and Tippi Hedren. Sure, it was nice that they had managed to get the lead actress from the 1963 movie, that being Tippi Hedren, to participate in "The Birds II: Land's End", but why as another character?

"The Birds II: Land's End" is an adequate enough movie if you have not seen the 1963 original movie "The Birds" from director Alfred Hitchcock. If you have seen the 1963, then you can easily skip on "The Birds II: Land's End".

My rating of director Rick Rosenthal's 1994 sequel "The Birds II: Land's End" lands on a five out of ten stars.

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.

I watched this movie tonight on ABC Family channel. I thought that the television station cut off the ending of the movie until I read some of the comments on this database and realized it actually ends that way. What a disappointment! I only decided to watch it because Brad Johnson was in it. I'll give it a 2/10 instead of a 1/10 since BJ was in it!