Birdemic: Shock and Terror
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 You hear that buzzing? That's Alfred Hitchcock spinning in his grave at 10,000 rotations per minute.
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"A BILLION DOLLARS?!"
— JonTron
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (aka Birdemic for short) is a 2010 American independent romantic horror film written, directed, and produced by James Nguyen. Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Birdemic tells the story of a romance between the two main characters as birds attack their small town.
Birdemic was made with no studio support, largely self-financed, and produced through Nguyen's Moviehead Pictures company for a budget of less than $10,000. After a limited theatrical release, the film gained a cult following and was picked up for distribution by Severin Films in 2010. A sequel called Birdemic 2: The Resurrection was even made in 2013.
Plot
Rod (Alan Bagh) is a young software salesman living a successful life in Silicon Valley. He meets up with old classmate and aspiring fashion model Nathalie (Whitney Moore) and begins dating her. Things go well for the couple, with Rod receiving a large bonus that he uses to start his own business, while Nathalie is chosen as a Victoria's Secret model. As they grow closer, the couple remains oblivious to signs of something going wrong around them, such as unexplained wildfires and the carcasses of diseased birds turning up on beaches.
After consummating their relationship in a motel, Rod and Nathalie wake up to find that their town is under attack from eagles and vultures that spit acid and explode into flames upon striking the ground. Rod and Nathalie escape from the motel by joining up with an ex-Marine named Ramsey (Adam Sessa) and his girlfriend Becky (Catherine Batcha). As they leave town, they rescue two young children, Susan (Janae Caster) and Tony (Colton Osborne), whose parents have been killed by the birds.
The group drives from one town to the next, fending off more bird attacks along the way and briefly meeting a scientist named Dr. Jones (Rick Camp) studying the phenomenon. The birds kill Becky, and Ramsey, in an attempt to exact revenge, tries to save a busload of tourists. As they leave the bus, Ramsey and the tourists are doused in acid excrement by the birds and all die.
Rod, Nathalie, and the kids continue to flee from the birds, driving into a forest where they briefly meet a "Tree Hugger" named Tom Hill (Stephen Gustavson), who explains to them that the birds have only been targeting gas stations and cars and that the attacks are the result of global warming. After escaping a forest fire, the quartet ultimately settles on a small beach, where Rod fishes for dinner. As they prepare to eat, they are attacked by the birds, which are suddenly—and for no explained reason—chased away by doves. The film ends as Rod, Nathalie, and the kids watch the birds fly off into the sunset.
Why It Will Shock and Terrorize You For The Rest Of Your Life
- The film is a blatant rip-off of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
- The acting is absolutely abysmal.
- The CGI animation for the birds is extremely poor, awful, laughable, to the point where they look like transparent stock GIFs. Not to mention looking very out of place in the live-action environment.
- Terrible editing for both the film and the sound, including the infamous "HI!" from the beginning.
- In the conference room scene, the editing looks like something made through Windows Movie Maker.
- Said conference room clapping scene's audio also seems to cut out at times and there's also a scene where two guys are doing... something else.
- Even though it's trying to set a good environmental message, it doesn't even try to be subtle about it.
- The characters are idiotic. In fact, there can be an entire subsection devoted to this.
- Several scenes drag on for way too long. In fact, there is SO much filler in this film that most of it was presumably justified to fill its length.
- There's a scene where Rod speaks with a contractor to build a solar panel on his house that contributes absolutely nothing to the plot.
- When a company CEO announces that their stock has skyrocketed, there's a clapping scene that goes on for way too long, due to bad scene shooting.
- The birds barely appear in the movie. In fact, the actual horror aspect doesn't occur until around the 45-minute mark.
- The movie poster is very cheap, amateurish, and looks like it was made using Microsoft Paint.
- A lot of profoundly weird, stupid, and nonsensical moments.
- When the "Birdemic" happens, Rod, Nathalie, Ramsey, and Becky hide in a motel to stay safe. Instead of just staying in the motel until the "Birdemic" is over, they decide to go outside to attack the birds with coat hangers.
- At one point, a guy holds the protagonists at gunpoint and orders them to sell him some gas instead of just taking it.
- After that guy gets killed by a bird, the protagonists leave their gas tank behind and inevitably run out of gas soon after.
- The children don't even seem to care that their parents are dead.
- A man at standing on a bridge sternly tells Rod, Nathalie, Ramsey, and Becky to stay away from the pond near where they're standing, only to mellow out when they say they just want to talk.
- The birds only stop attacking when doves appear, which makes absolutely no sense considering that they're also birds.
- As seen in the scene where the first waves of the "Birdemic" begin, the birds are shown to have the ability to explode upon impact with the ground (as if they were 1940s Kamikaze planes) with plane diving sounds.
- Also in another bird attack scene, the birds attack a group of people by spitting acid at them.
- Vultures appear to be attacking in the "Birdemic" despite the fact that in reality, vultures don't attack anything alive as they're mostly scavengers.
- There's a scene where Rod and Natalie cook some fish on the beach, which could have attracted the birds.
- Numerous moments throughout the film where the director, to quote Mystery Science Theater 300, "just didn't care":
- The Formula 1 racing stock footage during one of the news report scenes having the Getty Images watermark on it.
- One scene clearly shows the actress playing Nathalie's mother flubbing her line.
- Traffic going down the road as usual during the scene where Rod and Ramsey discover the two kids whose parents were killed by the birds.
- Very laughable and nonsensical dialogue.
- The film isn't even remotely scary, despite it being a horror film.
- The film plays out more like a meme than a film, an example being the exploding birds.
- Overall, this film, despite trying with it's environmental message, utterly fails at that and would likely cause people to do the opposite.
Redeeming Qualities
- Everything about the film is so incompetent and unprofessional that it's fun to watch. In other words, it is so bad, it is actually good.
- Nat's mom (played by Patsy van Ettinger) is the most endearing character in the whole movie. Her sincerity shows how much of an insanely likable and incredibly sweet character she is, much to the point that it hurts.
Trivia
- According to actress Bonnie Steiger, who played a tourist in the film, none of the actors, actresses or child actors involved received any payment as promised. Nguyen had initially promised her $100 for her part, but later refused claiming to have no money to pay at the time.
- The movie is ranked at #5 on IMDB's Bottom Rated Movies list, with a score of 1.8 out of 10.
Videos
Reception
Birdemic has been noted for its poor quality, with reviewers calling out its wooden acting and dialogue, amateurish sound and editing, nonsensical plot and its special effects, consisting entirely of poorly rendered CGI eagles and vultures that, in addition to performing physically awkward aerial maneuvers (non-animated bird sprites in the background will simply rotate 360° in mid-air), spit acid and explode with unrealistic smoke upon impact with the ground with a plane dive sound effect. It has also been noted that the birds do not appear until nearly halfway (47 minutes) into the film.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 18% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 17 reviews with a weighted average rating of 2.55/10.