Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Year: 1963
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Trying to get a rare bird, a woman is shown up in a prank by a stranger and tracks him to a small coastal community and tries to kindle a romance, only for a strange series of attacks by birds to interrupt everything, and as they start to think that the birds are attacking the community, the remaining town members fight back.
Review:
This was a really good film with a lot to really like about it. The best feature is the idea of unending terror without a given reasoning behind how these birds got this way. This tends to make the understanding of what happened in this movie really dependent on the viewer, and it works for the better because the audience doesn't really need to know. Birds are attacking and killing people, and instead of worrying about what is causing it, the characters just need to worry about surviving. That allows for a dramatic increase in the terror since survival matters more and can pay out to better effect. This also has an added bonus factor in that the birds that attack the humans aren't birds of prey but rather an assortment of ordinary, everyday birds. That's what makes the attacks all the more frightening, as a regular bird seen every day instills more terror than one that isn't interacting with them daily. It gives off a realistic vibe, making the randomness of the events that much more horrific.
That the big reason for the film's success lies in its superb attacks isn't all that odd either. Most notable is the entire diner sequence, where a long conversation about the impossibility of the event is broken when they start unleashing their assault. There's the scene inside a phone booth where the film traps us within the confines of the booth, whilst birds ram the glass to try and break in. You can feel the claustrophobia there, as there is no escape until the attack subsides, and the ferocity of the birds to break in is explicitly shown in the repeated attempts to get in. It's a long, drawn-out scene with a lot more action than normal for such a scene, as it plays out spectacularly and gets a lot of time to do so. Another attack that really works is the one on the school children, as every new shot of them climbing the frame outside has a few more birds waiting until the camera takes you outside to see that it's completely covered in birds. When they decide to take flight, the sheer number of birds is simply awe-inspiring, and the relentless, remorseless attack is brutal and bloody, making it about school-children even more frightening as they peck and scratching is seen here, delivering the shock required. The single best, though, is the final assault in the climax that starts the best possible way, where a single, weird coincidence gradually grows with each encounter, and helps make this a spectacular entry.
This really doesn't have a whole lot, but there are a few problems. The biggest one is the general pacing, which is rather off. The romantic subplot takes up the first fifty minutes before any sort of prolonged attack occurs, leaving the first half really slow-going. That it also contains numerous scenes of talking that lead nowhere also takes up a lot of time. The most obvious ones, where the two girls discuss past dating history, and the girlfriend and mother discuss what happened before they even knew each other, are just prime examples. The answers and topics aren't brought up again, and while cementing the relationships, they drag the film out needlessly. At the very least, they could've been trimmed substantially and still kept their overall intent intact. There are also some problems with the special effects, which are, for the most part, pretty bad. The live birds do fine, but are inserted into the scenes so haphazardly that it's so obvious it's a special effect that it takes you out of the scene. There are numerous shots, too many to mention, where the birds don't come off anywhere near realistically, even if the action itself is spectacular. These hamper the film the most and are its main weaknesses.
Overview: ****.5/5
While it is overrated a tad, this is still a very enjoyable film that has a lot to offer for fans of this style since those issues aren’t nearly as impactful as the more abundant positives featured. Most of the nitpicks are easily avoidable and might not even make a dent in viewing, leaving this open to classic horror fans or those looking for a different kind of creature feature altogether.
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