dandv
Sunnyvale
Worth watching, but for a completely different reason — 51 weeks ago
The Birds was the most ridiculous horror movie I’ve watched (and that includes The Evil Dead and other junk). Not only because of the lousy special effects – let’s relegate those to the lack of technology. But the characters’ reactions to the bird attacks often are preposterous. Let’s pick the final scene when Miss Daniels hears a wing flutter and goes in the room at the top of the house, and see how many things are wrong with it:
- Why would she go there?!
- Why, after peeking into the room and seeing it chock-full of birds, would she enter and…
- ... close the door behind her?
- Why then, when the birds start attacking, does she make all sorts of uncoordinated gestures instead of getting the hell out?
- Finally, her acting in that scene was just horrendous.
Now, why is The Birds worth watching? For the 60s aura (listen to how word intonation used to be back then) and especially for the chemistry between the two lead characters. Mitch (Rod Taylor) is handsome in the movie, and he knows it; he knows that Miss Daniels is strongly attracted to him, and he calls her bluffs with masculinity and confidence. Their dialogue is humorous and witty, and the power play is well worth watching…
...until about 1 hour and 10 minutes into the movie. After that, the birds march in, and the rest of the film is pretty much a waste of time. As philosophical food for thought, imagine a coordinated global ornithological conspiracy and how mankind would fight back – THAT’d be an interesting motion picture.
