Falco Terror

In this cheap (cheep!) 'animals attack' eco-horror, our feathered friends turn into feathered fiends: miffed at the way they have been treated by mankind, they swoop out of the sky to claw at people's faces and peck out their eyes. Intrepid TV reporters Peter (Christopher Atkins) and Vanessa (Michelle Johnson) investigate the terrifying phenomenon.

Deadly ducks, frightening flamingos, petrifying pigeons and ravenous raptors... gimme a break! Alfred Hitchcock might have succeeded in scaring audiences with his flappy critters in The Birds, but let's be honest, the word 'Beaks' doesn't strike the same kind of fear into the heart as 'Jaws'. That's because birds aren't as bowel-looseningly scary as sharks, as this film proves so well. Also - and this might be stating the bleedin' obvious - director René Cardona Jr. is no Hitchcock.

Cardona's film consists of a series of crappy bird attacks on a variety of unlucky souls, the birds launched at the actors and quickly flapping away, not looking at all menacing. There are a couple of hawks, which admittedly could do some damage, but most of the winged devils in the film are either doves or pigeons, which are pretty stupid birds with blunt beaks, but which somehow have the brains to use a door handle and peck through a wooden door (surely the pigeons could have got a couple of woodpeckers to help them). Oh, and there's a couple of tits: Vanessa's, when she takes a shower (although I suspect that Cardona used a body double for Johnson - I'm sure her's are bigger).

The acting is atrocious, Johnson so bad that she's in serious danger if those woodpeckers ever turn up. Cardona is a director capable of turning out reasonably entertaining trash (see Tintorera or The Night of a Thousand Cats), but this is not one of his better films, the film so weak that it doesn't even bother to come up with an ending, the belligerent birds suddenly stopping their pesky behaviour and returning to normal (I know the same could be said of The Birds, but, once again, I must stress that Cardona is no Hitchcock). Cardona also doesn't seem at all concerned for the safety of his feathered extras, the poor things hurled at (and through) glass windows and blasted by shotguns (they didn't look like fake birds to me).

2.5/10, rounded up to 3 for the gushing eye socket and some flesh ripping, the pigeons tearing at the victim's skin like flying piranhas (hmmm....flying piranha... now there's an idea).

Broadcast journalist Michelle Johnson (as Vanessa Cartwright) and cameraman Christopher Atkins (as Peter) stumble upon the story of the century - BIRDS, formerly our feathered friends, have taken a foul turn! They are attacking people all over the world! The cute shirt-shedding blonde couple track the mostly pesky pigeons as they make mince meat out of people's faces. As the attacks increase, you get less of Ms. Johnson and Mr. Atkins showing their chests, and more pigeon poking.

A real trouper, Mr. Atkins manages to utter the line, "We're sitting ducks," with a straight face.

"I know what we saw was awful, but it's over," says Salvador Pineda when he thinks he's escaped from danger. Not so fast. That could be your reaction after seeing this Rene Cardona Jr. homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963). There are some promising scenes, but the pace and editing are astonishingly bad - perhaps no editing was done, and Mr. Cardona tried to make a movie with the footage he had. And, it looks like they used up a lot of pigeons during production.

** Beaks (10/87) Rene Cardona Jr. ~ Michelle Johnson, Christopher Atkins, Sonia Infante, Salvador Pineda

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.

Rene Cardona Jr.'s spin on Hitchcock's THE BIRDS isn't just a bad movie – it's an incredibly trashy one, seemingly made with little regard for quality, coherence, editing or linear storytelling. Plenty of effort has been made to give the movie an international feel – parts of it were filmed in North and South America as well as Europe – and all that effort goes to waste in what is nothing more than a schlocky Z-grade attempt to emulate greatness. It has the same kind of quality to it as something like Bruno Mattei's ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH, except without the fun factor.

Things do kick off on a good note, with an ultra-gruesome moment involving an eagle. There are some hilarious attacks of people being 'ambushed' by birds achieved by somebody chucking pigeons, off camera, at the cast members! Then the film loses it and turns into a rambling narrative, setting up about five different sets of characters for an hour or so before throwing them into siege situations: a party attacked; a camper van seeking refuge; a train at the mercy of flocking winged terror. None of this is as interesting as it sounds, and the gore effects are in short supply, limited to a few scratches on the back of people's hands and on their faces.

Christopher Atkins and Michelle Johnson are set up as the nominal protagonists – a female reporter covering the avian crime and her cameraman sidekick. There's even some body-double nudity and a cheesy sex scene thrown in. However, these guys have little to do in the film and their acting absolutely sucks, with the kind of awful dubbing you expect from late '80s Spanish and Italian flicks. There's no characterisation anywhere in the film, and aside from a brief cameo from Italian star Gabriele Tinti, no interest from the varied cast.

In the end the film becomes overwhelming senseless, with more pigeons being chucked about than is strictly necessary; there's an exploding eagle and some annoyingly whiny kids around too, including the most irritating little red-haired girl whose awful scream leads you to hope that a pigeon will fly down and pluck out her throat! No such luck. Cardona made a long string of Mexican exploitation movies, but this is one of his very worst. It's not the worst I've seen, though; it may be an absolutely diabolical film, but like Z-grade trash such as THE ABOMINATION, it's never boring.

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.