Bird is the Word: A Thanksgiving Film for Those Sick of Turkey
If you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving or if you are just really sick of turkey dinners, I’d like to present an alternative bird-related experience: James Nguyen’s 2010 cult hit Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Taking inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, Nguyen’s self-proclaimed “romantic thriller” is often referred to as “the worst film ever made.” However, the ridiculous and nearly surreal egregiousness of this movie gives it a level of hilarity and charm that has never been (and probably never will be) replicated. Birdemic: Shock and Terror became a cult hit after screening during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in Utah— it was swiftly rejected from screening at the festival, but it was played in a bar beside the theatre, and its notoriety was established practically overnight. The film’s opening credits quickly set up the standard of Birdemic, scored by a 30-second motif that plays on repeat for 3 minutes straight. The subsequent forty minutes of the film follow protagonists Rod and Nathalie’s budding romance, with no killer birds or “Shock and Terror” to be seen. Then, almost out of nowhere, the Birdemic in question hits: vengeful, exploding CGI eagles launch an attack on the city. In any other movie, the fact that the birds are CGI would not need to be specified, but this is not just any other movie. Birdemic’s eagles appear to be taken directly out of an early 2000s video game: they are all identical, and their ‘attacks’ involve the deadly combination of floating in midair and making the same two bird noises... over and over again. While the terrible sound quality and unstabilized handheld cinematography might get old after 90 minutes, these birds definitely don’t, and I was cackling every time they came on the screen. The birds appear to be relentless killers, capable of blowing up buildings and wreaking general havoc at every turn, but they don’t seem to be a match for our brave protagonists, who fend them off with wire coat hangers and move on unscathed. In the kindest way possible, the acting in this movie might be even more unbelievable than the CGI eagles. The dialogue sounds subhuman at best— convincingly delivering them is already a challenge but the awkward nature of the lines is exacerbated by their delivery. At times, scenes had me wondering if the actors had forgotten what to say, and Nguyen just said “good enough, that’s a wrap!” Birdemic: Shock and Terror has its faults, but it manages to establish a marginally solid theme at the same time, harboring a beautiful message about the importance of protecting the earth amidst the dangers of global warming. It’s unclear to me why Nguyen’s choice allegory for this message is a flock of birds that kill people who drive gas vehicles and brandish guns, but art’s art. Fans of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room will especially get a kick out of Birdemic’s both dry and wholly unintentional humour. The sincerity to which Nguyen commits to such absurd direction makes Birdemic a memorable staple in the niche “so-bad-it’s-good” genre of film, and for $2.99 a rental on Youtube, I highly recommend you experience it for yourself. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sources: https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/meet-the-director-behind-the-worst-movie-ever-made/579f90 5547f3dfe4524a816e