Early this week, Mr. Matt Kelly said, “Hey, Allison, you should review Birdemic for your weekly column. It’ll be great!” And me, being the innocent and so naïve person that I am, trusted him and sat down to watch it.
What I thought would be an experience of greatness, of a bad movie along the lines of so many other bad movies that I love, turned out to be the equivalent of attending an eighth grade science fair where most of the children are severely autistic and prone to rocking back and forth while braiding lanyards and forcing them upon the hapless attendees, then shanking any male passersby if they are wearing Old Spice.
Possibly an eagle, possibly bad CGI.
Birdemic was released in 2008, having spent a theoretical four years in production—the delay attributed to the slow personal funding of writer and director James Nguyen (Tidbit: the IMDB biography of Mr. Nguyen contains the phrase, “Also known as Master of Romantic Thrillers Among the new generation of auteurs in the 21st Century”), and panned with such incredible intensity that it became a cult classic.
Personally, I can’t imagine sitting through this film ever again, so to imagine that there’s a large group of people out there that actually enjoy watching this flaming pile of cloaca is quite difficult. Then to face myself with the task of hand writing letters to each of them explaining why they’re wrong… it’s rather daunting, but ultimately worth the effort.
This movie stars –and I use that term very, very loosely— Alan Bagh as the infinitely punchable software salesman, Rod, and Whitney Moore as the toothy fashion model, Nathalie. There some other “supporting casts”, but I’m not going to mention their names so they can begin to heal from the trauma of their experience.
For when one cast isn't enough.
Because of time constraints, and the sheer volume of rant I have on this movie, I’m going to attempt to limit myself to summarizing the first ten minutes of the film—which is great, because FOUR OF THOSE MINUTES are devoted to following dipshit Rod around in his blue mustang while the opening credits roll to a looped twenty second track that wishes it had been composed by Richard Band, but can’t quite claim to be of actual musical value.
The remaining six minutes introduce us to the incredible sound quality that will plague the rest of the movie: varying levels of sound, asinine levels of sound, sound that makes you want to learn to do post-production mixing so no one you truly care for will ever have to experience what you’re experiencing. Then if your senses weren’t feeling violated enough, Nguyen shoves a terrifying European waitress into view, who takes Rod’s order and, in a display of mercy not found often in this movie, disappears.
"Don't show fear, Nathalie, just don't show fear and maybe he'll go away."
While waiting for his bratwurst, Rod spots Nathalie and, as she flees because she feels him watching her like a total creep while she cuts her toast, he checks out her ass. After confirming her ass is of high quality, he suddenly realizes that she is the Girl For Him, leaving Helga heartbroken by doing a dine-and-dash and not even finishing the orange juice she so carefully poured for him.
Once he manages to catch up to his darling power-walker, awkward dialogue ensues. During this conversation, we discover that not only can he not act, he also is unable to hide his serial rapist nature. We are also able to confirm that, yes, he has never had sex in his life and likely never will.
"I'm gonna cut out her kidneys and use them for slippers."
Nathalie, sensing that she’s spending time in the company of a terrible actor, attempts to escape his company, but he chases her down once more and holds her at the vicious knife-point of painful awkwardness until she gives him her number.
So that’s about ten minutes, give or take a couple of minutes because I cannot bear to recount the details of this awful story any longer.
In sum, birds begin to indiscriminately attack the residents of Half Moon Bay by dropping bird bombs (not a euphemism—they’re actually exploding when they crash into buildings) on them, spraying them with acidic cloaca, or doing a fly-by tearing out of throats. Rod and Nathalie band together with another young couple and they take to the road, battling the birds and trying to save what little survivors remain in what appears to be some godawful birdocaplyse commercial for Greenpeace.
They used paper napkins, and now they must pay.
By studying this film, I’ve come up with a list of ten guidelines for those of us that will eventually be faced battling this fowl menace.
ALLISON’S SURVIVAL TIPS FOR SURVIVORS WHO WANT TO SURVIVE AN ATTACK FROM EXPLODING AVIANS THAT CHALLENGE THEIR SURVIVAL
1. Want to picnic on the cliffs or play on the beach during a bird attack? Go for it! Birds hate beaches!
2. You still need to follow basic traffic laws no matter how much your life may be in danger—there’s no excuse for dangerous driving.
3. If you happen to come across a group of people holed up in a bus, you should probably get them out of their safe environment—it’ll toughen them up.
4. It’s totally safe to leave your gas-filled car on the side of the road with the keys still in the ignition—no one will take it, especially during an emergency.
5. Hippies live in the woods and will dispense wisdom. They survive on tree bark, pine cones, and the beneficence of the Mother Goddess.
6. Gas isn’t that important to travel. Mom’s mini-van gets excellent mileage, so feel free to leave a few gallons behind—it’ll magically show back up in your car later.
7. It’s perfectly safe to drink water from a creek in the California woods—they’re totally unpolluted.
8. Convenience store clerks are devoted to their posts, and will not leave even during the birdacolypse, so don’t even think about snagging those Twinkies for free.
9. You’ll always know when to take cover, because when birds dive towards the ground they make missile noises and explode.
10. Don’t worry about stocking up on cash– even though the phone lines may be down, stores will still be able to accept your credit card.
Remember this face-- you'll be seeing it later tonight... at your window.
Now that you’re properly prepared for this avian devastation, I highly suggest that you never, never ever, NEVER watch this film. Do NOT queue it up on Netflix on Demand, do NOT subject yourself to the worst editing I’ve ever seen, do NOT watch the awkward, lingering transitions and the phone conversations that make you think that both parties are suffering from some sort of brain degradation. Pick another movie, hell, pick Troll 2 or Thankskilling—both of which Netflix offered up as suitable alternatives to this flick.
Just stay the flock away, and if you do decide to sit down and witness this debeakal, you’ll definitely egret it.