Kaw

It's a Sci Fi Channel movie. With killer ravens that got infected from Amish mad cows. I thought it was relaxing to watch the film, expecting every bit of it to be as it was and not getting disappointed. I wasn't expecting much, though.

The result was some shoddy CGI birds, a lot of scenes ripped off from The Birds, no script, nothing scary, people dying from superficial wounds and car accidents, a big explosion to save the day and a quick scare last scene.

Bottom line: no reason why you should see this film. No reason why you shouldn't, either. It's the perfect zen TV movie, in perfect balance.

Alfred Hitchcock doesn't need to rollover in his grave just yet, but at some points during this average and largely uninspired imitation of "The Birds", we definitely came too damn close! Sheldon Wilson, who recently scored a modest hit with "Shallow Ground", adds very few elements to the original idea of aggressive birds (ravens, to be exact) attacking human beings, apart from an admittedly decent explanation for the their unusual behavior. On his very last day as the Sheriff of Middletown, Wayne encounters several peculiar fatal accidents that are seemingly inflicted by ordinary ravens, judging by the bloodied wounds on the victims' bodies. Long before Wayne and the local doctor (played by Rod Taylor; lead star of Hitchock's "The Birds"!) can find the time to investigate the reasons for the birds' murderous new instincts, they have to protect and evacuate the townspeople, as the bird-attacks rapidly become more frequent and hostile. As mentioned before, I appreciated the explanation given to the epidemic of virulent ravens. I won't reveal everything, but it relates to factual diseases cattle-breeders recently had to deal with, combined with the secluded and private life style of Amish communities. The rest of the film is overall decent too, but director Wilson sadly doesn't share Hitchcock's talents to make even a simple bird look scary and menacing. The multiple and extended images of hundreds of birds suspiciously observing the people of Middletown therefore aren't very unsettling and quickly tend to get boring. Their attacks naturally are a bit monotonous as well, since they can exclusively peck their victims to death and we all know this may take a while. And still, despite all these flaws and some more, "Kaw" is an overall entertaining creature-feature that mainly benefices from likable character drawings and neat acting performances. Although most of the characters are pure stereotypes (the Sheriff facing his ultimate challenge on his last day, the town's drunkard, etc...), you quickly develop sympathy for them and you hope that at least some of them make it out alive. The photography is quite nice, with a handful of ingenious POV shots and director Wilson also effectively creates a feeling of complete isolation. There probably isn't enough gore or cheese to satisfy the majority of fanatic horror fans. I count myself among them and I thought it easily could have been much gorier without affecting the plot in a bad way. Is it too much to ask to show at least one raven pecking out someone's eyeball and fly around it with it? Guess so... "Kaw" also stands for Sean Patrick Flannery's best career move since "Boondock Saints" – he starred in a lot of straight to video crap recently – and it was a fantastic stunt to motivate Rod Taylor to star in an unofficial homage to "The Birds". Taylor barely starred in any film since the early 90's, but he's still a powerful actor. I say this reasonably well-made and interesting film deserves at least one viewing.

I couldn't keep a straight face while watching this. All I could think of was The Crows Have Eyes III from Schitt's Creek and Moira's daft performance. Just another The Bird's ripoff, don't bother.

I don't feel like wasting much of my time writing a long, in-depth review on a film such as Kaw, a Sci-Fi Original Movie, so let me get straight to the details here: This film is about a pack rabid birds (Supposedly just ravens, but it's pretty obvious that they have a mixture of ravens and crows in the there) that terrorize a town for a reason not revealed until near the end, and most of the film is spent following several people who meet up in the end, simply running from the creatures. It's really as simple and ridiculous as that.

But, I don't think I've enjoyed a Sci-Fi movie as much as Kaw since the should-be cult-classic Alien Apocalypse (Starring Bruce Campbell) or the amazingly bad Nature Unleashed: Tornado. Yes, it has its mass of flaws including very mediocre CGI (a commonface among Sci-Fi movies), an uninteresting and generic plot/story, and an extremely lame, clichéd ending for the genre. But... I will go as far as to say the acting was pretty good/mediocre, but never laughably bad; an oddity with Sci-Fi movies. Same thing goes with the diologue which proved to be believable and somewhat interesting on occasion.

Even though the movie doesn't have any 'scary' scenes (as expected), I was surprised to find that it did, however, have a few slightly intense moments here and there that had me creep towards my TV, as well as a good amount of blood and gore that was seemingly well-done.

Overall, Kaw is a decent film for the Sci-Fi channel. Usually these movies end up being complete unbearable disasters, but this one was, to some extent, entertaining; I enjoyed watching this on my Saturday night where I didn't have much else to do, and I'd say it was worth watching. My Sci-Fi Channel Original Picture score for Kaw makes an easy 7/10, but my real score is shown above.

This is a reworking of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". And, this is a great example of why I prefer classic movies. The Birds started out developing the characters. You understood them, and even to care for them. Gradually Hitchcock built up the suspense and he anticipated the audience reactions. The Birds had real characters, complete with quirks, flaws, problems, emotions and feelings. You got to really know the citizens and visitors of Bodega Bay. It also had a plot, (imagine that), genuine suspense, atmosphere, humor, a riveting score and masterful Hitch touches throughout. It wasn't about special effects, gore and shock, although he incorporated that into The Birds, it is not what made the film work.

Kaw isn't an awful film, but it lacks just about everything I mentioned above. It lacks a heart and soul, and especially character development. There are no intriguing characters. It's obvious and predictable. There isn't much suspense if you know what's going to happen. It's watchable, I wasn't bored. Best of all, it helped me appreciate the classics even more. Watch this, then The Birds. You'll see what makes a film great, rather than just merely passable.