Gli uccelli II

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

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.

It's a rare thing that a sequel made decades later can surpass the quality of the original, but such is the case for The Birds II: Land's End.

Rick Rosenthal, of Halloween II and Halloween: Resurrection, cements himself with this film as this generation's Alfred Hitchcock. Every now and then, a visionary director will take a stale premise and breathe life and energy into the project. This is where Rosenthal surpasses Hitchcock in every respect. For instance, while the original "The Birds" is well regarded as a "classic", few remember that it was originally in black and white. While Hitchcock struggled to capture color on film, Rosenthal displays a wide range of them, effortlessly. While the first film presented the audience with two-dimensional antagonists, Land's End takes us deep within the minds of the birds- making for a much more frightening experience. We empathize with the birds, but Rosenthal deftly balances this with their carnal, innate evil, to the point where it's difficult not to root for them. There's a carnal sexuality to these birds that was sorely lacking from the original. Where they were simply black and white before, now the birds are brought to life, more complex (and sexy) than ever before.

I recommend this film to students of film, fans of fun, and generally anyone looking to have a "hoot" of a time. It's clear no one on this production was "eating crow" after filming. All around, this is a "coo" movie, not for the jay-ded.

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,

I came on IMDb to check the details of this movie just after having seen it. To my surprise its genre was "horror" and not "comedy". But then, I saw Alan Smithee on the director's credits, a guarantee for good laughs (the MST3K way of course). It is absolutely ridiculous from beginning to end, so I enjoyed it very much. The dog's funeral was a real high point, I almost fell off the couch laughing!