Birdemic: Shock & Terror

BIRDEMIC: SHOCK & TERROR (15)

D: James Nguyen

Severin/Moviehead (James Nguyen & Tim Ubels)

USA 🇺🇸 2008 (released 2010)

92 mins

Horror

W: James Nguyen

DP: Daniel Mai

Ed: Kim Chow

Mus: Andrew Seger

Alan Bagh (Rod), Whitney Moore (Nathalie), Janae Carter (Susan), Colton Osborne (Tony), Adam Sessa (Ramsey)

This is so atrociously bad that I actually find it insulting that this movie managed to find a distributer whilst many better films are still stuck in purgatory.

I don't acknowledge that this is meant to be a bad low budget film, plenty of them were made during the 1960's and still managed to provide adequate entertainment, whereas this doesn't provide any, all due to terrible production values, where all the rules of general filmmaking are ignored for something cheap and shoddy. What makes it even worse is that director of this pathetic excuse for a film actually took it seriously, with product placement for a ecological website thrown into nearly every scene.

In a nutshell it's a ripoff of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, but most of the film is wasted with establishing shots and 5 minute scenes of a character sitting in traffic, getting petrol, sitting in traffic, walking into work (no dialogue, just shots which had clearly been filmed in pickups - the period after principal photography when a second unit crew go out for establishing shots and non-essential close ups, etc.).

When the horror/thriller element of the film does get going, it's far too late to generate any interest because you just don't care about the lifelessly dull characters.

Without all the nonsensical filler, this may have passed the cut as a short film (20-30 mins) and while it still would have been pretty bad, it wouldn't have been an insulting waste of time, equipment and celluloid.

Honestly, there is nothing good about this film. The direction, acting, photography, editing, sound and special effects are below what I would associate with even an amateur movie. The attacking birds explode on impact and have the ability to spray acid at their victims. We'll have to talk to Charles Darwin about that one.

Of all the terrible films I've seen, of which there have been several, this has to be the worst of the lot. Scoring nothing out of ten for a rating is generous.

0/10

Did You Know:

Many of the credits for the crew are fake. James Nguyen added them to make the film look more professional. Lead actress Whitney Moore even took over makeup artist duties during production, as the first two appointees quit during filming.