“What did you do last Friday night?”
“Went to a party. It was awesome. You?”
What did I do last Friday night? How could I possibly put it to words? I did indeed participate in the most meaningless hour and thirty-three minutes of my life. Doing so, I most likely took a few years off of my own life. I laughed. I cried. I tore my hair out. I screamed but not out of fear.
There are very few movies that I can honestly say have changed my life. These are films that could either change the way we view life or perhaps even just the way we view cinema, if it’s ground-breaking enough. Movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Citizen Kane, and Pulp Fiction come to mind, but then there’s this little 2008 cult film, largely unknown to the populace. I am talking of course of the film that is Birdemic: Shock and Terror.
The first thing you notice is the title. Birdemic. Has there ever been a sillier word written in the history of mankind? And as for the subtitle…well…it’s simply both shocking and terrifying that this film was made.
The plot is like Hitchcock’s The Birds. But the movie sucks. It’s horrible beyond words. The acting is cringe-inducing as well as the dialogue, the directing is troubled to say the least, and the sound and editing appear to have been handled by a kindergartner. And the special effects are beyond awful. Now special effects don’t make a movie and I don’t often complain about special effects. I can accept dated special effects and enjoy movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Birds. But both those movies look like Avatar when compared to Birdemic. When your entire movie revolves around birds attacking people and they appear to have come from Microsoft ClipArt, it’s never a good sign.
Seriously the visual effects are just hilarious, but they might not even be the worst thing about this movie. Everything is just unnatural—the acting, the dialogue, the film’s soundtrack which appears to have just been taken from your generic computer program.
So it’s a movie about birds attacking, right? Yes. Yes it is.
But it’s not. Nothing like that happens until almost an hour into the movie. Instead we have to watch the main character drive around for like ten minutes, with some of the most awkward cinematography ever. While he’s driving his Mustang, the camera is looking out the windshield while the credits role. But the camera is at the weirdest angle and overall it’s just very unpleasant to the eyes. And then the main character eventually gets out of his car and has the most unnatural walk that I can’t even describe. It’s like he’s walking less than a mile an hour. And then he enters the restaurant and this is the first indication that the film has a major problem in its audio (other than the painfully annoying credit music). The film jumps from incredibly loud background noise—to a point in which the waitress’s words are hardly identifiable—to dead silence and then back to incredibly loud. And this happens frequently throughout the movie—like more times than I can count.
So the main character stares at this one attractive woman while she eats and then she leaves and he follows without paying for whatever the hell it is that he bought. He catches up with her and he finds out that he went to high school with her. And then he asks her where she’s from. And he says where he’s from and it isn’t where she’s from so how did they go to high school together? Anyways apparently she’s a fashion model, he’s like a salesman or something for something and they exchange business cards. So he’s Rod and she’s Nathalie or whatever.
This movie has obnoxious environmental overtones. It’s clear that writer/director/producer James Nguyen does not know the meaning of the word “subtle”. People complain about global warming throughout the entire movie, there’s a bunch of random stuff about solar panels and things like that, the camera zooms in on the prices of a gas station in one shot, so it’s no surprise that eventually it’s revealed that the reason the birds are attacking is because of global warming and stuff. But there’s plenty to talk about for before we even get to the birdemic scenes.
So eventually this “relationship” progresses between the two characters. They go on a date, they meet her mother, and then they recap all of what’s happened like multiple times or whatever. And none of the dialogue sounds remotely realistic. They don’t sound like real people talking and every line of dialogue is awkward, usually explains more than is necessary, and the people who are friends don’t seem to know each other at all based on their dialogue.
Then we’re introduced to two random characters having sex in a bedroom with clothes on and an “Imaginepeace.com” poster up for no reason. The woman is Nathalie’s best friend and the guy is Rod’s best friend, apparently. So they eventually have a double date. But the strangest part about this scene—along with the distracting poster—is that there’s an instrumental 32-bit cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine” playing. Why? And this apparently like becomes a motif or whatever for whenever we see this woman. When they go on a double date, she’s wearing an Imagine Peace t-shirt and later on when they run into them during the birdemic, that stupid song is playing again.
So on their double-date they go and see The Inconvenient Truth and then they spell it out for the audience that this is a movie about the environment because the characters say they are going to get green cars and stuff. Then Nathalie and Rod continue to go on dates or whatever. When’s the birdemic going to come? Even as like a b-monster movie this is incredibly weak because nothing happens for like forever. They walk on the beach and it’s so windy that you can hardly hear what they’re saying. Then they see a dead bird and act like it’s an incredibly huge deal. Why? It’s a dead bird; it’s something to point out but not like dwell on. But they go by it and it’s clearly fake; it looks like ClipArt. And so that happens. It doesn’t really pertain to the future plot because although there is indeed a bird, the birdemic isn’t that birds die. They attack people.
So then Rod and Nathalie go to like this bar where they’re the only people there and there’s this one dude who sings an R&B song that’s surprisingly catchy and they dance emphatically to it. But they’re the only ones there…so it’s strange. Then they go have sex in a hotel room for some reason except they’re clothed. It’s just strange.
Then the birds finally attack. Except it’s like the next day or whatever and you never see the start of the attack, you just see a bunch of ClipArt birds who have seemingly been attacking the city for hours already. How do I know this? Because there’s already fires all over the city (again, ClipArt fires). And the birds make plane noises for whatever reason and just crash into stuff, causing explosions. It’s unclear if the birds themselves are exploding or they’re crashing into stuff that explodes. And if you care at this point then there’s something wrong with you.
So Nathalie and Rod wake up and see that the birds are trying to come inside, so they escape to another hotel room where they run into an ex-Marine and his girlfriend. Then they run to the Marine’s car, defending themselves with wire hangers. When they’re in the car the dude apparently has a bunch of guns or whatever, including a machine gun. Why? Wouldn’t that be a major felony for him to have those in his car if he were to be pulled over for any reason? And besides, he was just in a hotel with his girlfriend, most likely on vacation. Why would he bring guns while he’s just with his girlfriend? And the guns, by the way, look like guns you might use in a game of laser tag.
So they drive away and pick up two bratty kids who have no enthusiasm whatsoever for the dialogue they have to deliver. So they’re driving around, stealing food and water from a deli, and then driving around more, and then they have a picnic by the beach for no reason. They run into this scientist dude who—in my favorite scene in the film—flawlessly switches the subject from birds attacking to global warming causing viruses that affect all the birds and kill them. So at this point you’re aware that global warming is causing the birds to attack, according to the movie.
Then the Marine’s girlfriend is killed while going to the bathroom in the field. Why did she think that was a good idea? So they drive around more and shoot more birds and come across a double-decker bus with three people in it pressed up against the windows, with some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen. I don’t care if they’re extras, that’s just inexcusable. The Marine runs in and brings them out, insisting that they’ll be safe after they have shot the birds with their toy guns. So they come out and more birds come. They shoot a bird and it like explodes or something and a bunch of yellow acid(?) drops all over them ala Alien. They scream and wail in pain (or it could have been over why they were in that movie but if that’s the case, good heads-up by the cameraman to catch that) and then they’re attacked by birds. Their faces are bloody and stuff even though if you look at where the birds are placed they are actually nowhere near their faces. So anyways all four of them die and now it’s just Rod, Nathalie, and those two stupid kids.
They drive around again. They need to get gas so they go to this one gas station and the door is opened and the place is evidently unaffected by the birds but the attendant mentions the birds. I don’t get it. And he charges them $100 a gallon. And for reasons that I don’t know if I’ll be able to fully explain, this is just the strangest scene I’ve ever witnessed in a movie. There’s this weird, blurred-out feel to the entire thing. It’s like they’re not even in a gas station and they just projected a gas station in post-production. But there’s no way this movie had the money for that. I think it’s just that every product name is blurred out so they don’t get sued, but there are so many products that it’s disorienting actually. The kids grab some candy bars. The boy seems to enjoy his SDHFPKHWP bar and the girl enjoys her FOIWEIEU bar as well.
They drive again and pull over to help this one cowboy who needs gas. They said they can’t help him but they offer him a ride. And then he pulls out a gun and says they need to sell him gas. Why sell? If you have a gun you might as well just take the damn gas. So they give him the gas and he backs away, going in the opposite direction of his car, and then a bird swoops by and slits his throat, killing him. Rod then gets in the car and drives away. Now it’s basically a cliché in horror movies to do stupid things. People drop things and leave them, don’t close doors—things like that. But usually there’s at least some kind of an excuse, like they’re on the run and in a hurry or whatever. Here they have all the time in the world. The bird that killed the cowboy flew away and there are no other birds present. There is virtually NO excuse for him not to take the extra gas or gun.
So they drive again. They come to a lighthouse. Nathalie says that’s where her friend is. Why? Does she work at a lighthouse? Does she live in a lighthouse? Why else would she be at a lighthouse? I think she like recognized the car or whatever but she clearly points at the lighthouse instead of the car on the side of the road. So they go to the car which has open windows and the friends are dead, 32-bit “Imagine” playing again.
At some point they go in the woods for some reason and come across this really creepy looking guy who is hilarious in his lack of subtlety. He lives in a tree and says he’s safe from the birds because they only attack people in cars and gas stations. How does he know that if he just lives in a tree in the middle of the woods? It’s established that his treehouse isn’t even high up in the tree so it’s not like he has a good view of anything that isn’t ten feet away from him. And he lectures about how the birds don’t scare him at all but forest fires do. So the group of people go back to their car and kind of encounter a forest fire except not really.
Then they go to catch some fish to eat at a beach. And this is another one of my favorite moments in the film. Rod opens the trunk to see what he can get to get food. “Oh, look, a fishing pole,” he says. “I can catch some fish with it. Oh, look, a stove. I can cook it.” The horrible writing combined with the lackadaisical tone of the actor playing Rod just make this such a joy to watch. It’s the little things in life.
So they cook seaweed and a fish—not skinned by the way. Then the kids don’t want to eat. Then more birds come. Then they run back to the car and run out of ammo. A bird goes kamikaze and cracks the windshield a little bit, dying. Are these birds organized? Did that bird think it could survive that collision, or did it have like a needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few attitude? I don’t get it.
Then the birds leave because other smaller birds come. Doves? I’m not sure. So apparently all is well even though the birds have left plenty of times during the movie, but I guess the eighth time is the charm or whatever. So they all go to the beach and look the sea. And you honestly can’t hear the last line of the movie because the sound is so messed up. And then it ends.
So what are the themes of Birdemic? Clearly it’s a cautionary tale about human beings’ harmful carbon emissions or whatever. But I think it goes much deeper than that. It’s an allegory, really, of how pre-marital sex contributes to the downfall of contemporary society. The movie has nothing to do with birds until after the two main characters have sex and their friends who constantly talk about sex are killed. It’s like a slasher movie in this sense, I guess. I don’t really know.
This is an extremely entertaining movie in the sense that you never will not be laughing. You may pull out some hair and you will definitely lose brain cells, but you will have plenty of laughs. And it’s on Netflix: Watch Now or Instantly or whatever, so check it out.
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