Talk us through itSan Francisco socialite Melanie Daniels has the tables turned on her by lawyer Mitch Brennar in a pet store, thus forcing her to seek some sort of retribution by tracking him down. Mitch went into the pet store to purchase a couple of love birds for his young sister's birthday – yes, that is the Veronica Cartwright – and saw through Melanie's charade of being a sales clerk. Melanie follows Mitch to the northern township of Bodega Bay with the intention of delivering the love birds, cause that will show old Mitch or something. Unfortunately for Melanie, and the residents of Bodega Bay, the weekend turns sour when local birds go psycho on everyone's arse and go on the offensive. Mitch may get the gal but it's at the cost of his mom's chickens being off their feed. A classic in the horror genre ensues. You ready to check the skies?
Review“It said 'Dear Mister Brenner, I think you need these lovebirds after all. They may help your personality.' “ - MelanieOver the years various interpretations have been given to The Birds, ’cause heaven forbid that it could just be a movie. The avian attack is due to Melanie taking Mitch away from mum – shoot-from-the-hip analysis and we should be able to do better. The whole caged love bird thing – well paint the town pink, that's got to explain it. A change in wind conditions – hey, pre-dating the whole debate on climatic change; paging Mr Emmerich, do we have a Mr Emmerich in the building? Nowhere in The Birds is the revolt of nature explained; it's actually not crucial to the film you are watching – shite happens team, learn to live with it. Hitchcock coined the phrase “MacGuffin” to explain something that propels the plot and character motivations in a movie but which has no relevance to the story being told. In The Birds, Hitch is presenting the mother of all MacGuffins, so don't bother dialling in if you need trite explanations covering what you are watching. You could just as well put the attacks down to people lighting cigarettes, as in every attack scene some one is sucking on a cig as the attack goes down. Clearly Hitchcock wasn't making an anti-smoking movie, but the inference is there if you want to draw a long bow. Birds attack, reason unknown, learn to deal with it. What Hitchcock does present us with is a movie dripping in tension that also includes two iconic horror scenes that have since been duplicated ad nauseam by all and sundry. Firstly, the crows on the play equipment and subsequent escape by the school kids in what seems an endless run down a country road towards the town and what we would like to think is safety. Hitchcock ramps up the tension at the get-go with this scene by having Melanie sitting quietly having a smoke as the crows gather on the equipment behind her. Note that the start of the scene is offset by a pretty repetitive song being sung by the school children, adding to the disquiet of proceedings. And secondly, the scene where Melanie hears something and heads into an upstairs bedroom only to discover that the birds haven't ceased their frenzied attack. Hitchcock pretty much defined the use of light and darkness to ramp tension in a horror movie with this part of the film. Most Directors are hard pressed to get a single defining moment in their entire careers, yet here Hitchcock gets two in the one film, and some people would argue a third with the closing scene. The Birds starts with Melanie heading towards a pet shop to buy an Indian mynah bird so that she can teach it bad language and give it to her aunt. Some unseen dude wolf whistles at her, and she turns to note a flock of birds high over the city. This follows the opening credits, shown pretty chaotically over black and white footage of frenzied avians. Hitchcock is adding the first notes to his fright opera right here and now. Surprisingly, he then takes time out to develop the relationship between Melanie and Mitch. Melanie is a sort of beta Paris Hilton, the rich gal with too much time on her hands, and making all the wrong headlines in the newspaper. We later learn that she may have dived naked into a fountain in Rome. Mitch is the uptight lawyer, and given that chin you immediately have him pegged as the hero of the movie. It's this eye for detail that separates Hitchcock from lesser Directors in the dark genre. Hitch takes time to get the audience behind his characters before unleashing avian hell in the final act. The middle act of course focuses on the four females in Mitch's life, and their building relationships. And yes, that is a young Veronica Cartwright as the sister – she would later of course appear in Scott's Alien (1979). 
While keeping tension and the odd scare scene high on the agenda – Hitchcock just keeps that stuff coming throughout – I was quite surprised by the addition of a single “gore” scene, Mum finding out just what did happen to that dude who sold her the chicken feed that ain't working. Hitchcock uses quick cut and a camera moving ever closer to that face with each frame. For Hitchcock this works, and is a shocking turn up for audiences expecting the typical 1960s scary movie. Once again other Directors have attempted to emulate Hitch's quick cuts with only a very few able to work out just why this scene impacts. Notably, some of the TV Directors are surprisingly more attuned to getting the best out of this aspect of moviemaking than their large-screen colleagues. It works due to being a single scene with an impactful visual. Also of note in The Birds is Hitchcock's ability to go from ground level shots building on the various characters, to overhead when he wants to get a “bird's eye” view. Check out the scene of the township's petrol station going up in flames as seen via the gulls building in number overhead. An effective shot with the single bit of colour in an otherwise drab frame being the “river of flame”. Hitchcock has two locations that have been repeated over and over again in horror movies ever since. The survivors waiting it out in the diner, including the “expert”, the average Joe, and some shrill chick who decides the attack is some how related to Melanie. Ever wondered where Stephen King got the idea of the local supermarket from in The Mist? Later, and in the penultimate scene, Mitch, his family, and Melanie are boarding up the old homestead in the face of increasingly vicious attacks by various types of birds. Romero has stated this informed Night of the Living Dead, but the influence is not confined to Romero and is simply everywhere including Captain Kirk's heroic stand against an army of tarantulas in Kingdom of the Spiders. And don't we all love a William Shatner schlock outing – Canada must be proud. Overall Hitchcock gives us the blueprint on how to construct a horror movie, how to ramp up the tension, and how to hit the “jump in your seat” moments. The Birds has stood the test of time and remains evocative to modern audiences able to suspend their belief, or who aren't jaded by post-MTV scatter gun filmmaking with lashings of gore. If anyone is thinking about making a horror movie then The Birds should be fundamental to them seeing what can be done with the genre without going down the exploitation track. As always Hitchcock demonstrates why he is held in such high regard as a director, there simply are no weak points in this film. Rod Taylor (Mitch) takes the lead here, and is another of the squared-jawed heroes who saved the day throughout 1950s and 1960s movies. Hitchcock is getting the best out of the actor, but there's a faint hint that Taylor may have been out of his element. He does okay in the action parts of The Birds, but seems stilted when interacting with the other characters. Opposite, Tippi Hedren (Melanie), seemingly cast because Hitchcock considered her to be the next screen siren, is actually pretty good, though somewhat wooden in delivery. Hedren didn't explode on the scene quite as much as Hitchcock expected, but does crop up in the most unusual of places. Saving The Birds on the acting front is an abnormal amount of great performances from the support cast. Suzanne Pleshette (Annie) is sensational as Mitch's ex-girlfriend who keeps the audience informed of the Brenner family dynamic. A major plot turning – watch the final couple of scenes – has impact due to Pleshette's understated delivery of information earlier in the movie. Jessica Tandy (Lydia) simply nails the roll of the mom who is overly concerned about the impact a new woman may have on Mitch's, and more importantly her own, life. Tandy is superb in The Birds, her transformation in the final scene is simply outstanding. Veronica Cartwright (Cathy) gets to play one of those really annoying children that audiences suffered though in the 1960s. Today we would call them obnoxious, but even at a young age Cartwright is delivering on a required character type. Bernard Herrmann delivers one of the most original scores ever heard in a movie up to 1963. By and large there is no soundtrack; Herrmann went with avian noises throughout that simply ramp up what Hitchcock was trying to achieve visually. Now that was a huge gamble, considering audiences would have been expecting the dramatic orchestral movements, but by heck, Herrmann delivers in every scene.
Summary ExecutionThe Birds shows what can be done in horror with an ounce of talent, a decision to take risks, and a vision of the final delivered movie. Hitchcock nailed this one for mine, and has handed down a classic in the dark genre that is still as impactful today as it was in the 1960s. I absolutely love this movie and watch it at least once a year. Hitchcock delivered on all fronts and simply had me mesmerized by his achievements in the flick. Simply put, The Birds is on my top twenty horror movie list.Not knowing when to leave well enough alone, the studios did in fact crank out a sequel; the 1994 telemovie The Birds II: Land' s End. Tippi Hedren was the only actor involved who appeared in the original, and gets a cameo here. Hey, maybe they are right, it's all Tippi’s fault. Anyway, Rick “Halloween II” Rosenthal helmed but had his named changed to the ubiquitous “Alan Smithee” in order to try and save his career after a rather pedestrian sequel. Why did the birds attack in Land's End? Possibly to ensure they wouldn't be included in a third movie. In even worse news, Michael Bay has gotten his hands on the property and is threatening a remake of The Birds sometime in the future. Jesus kills a kitten every time one of these numb nuts remakes is announced; expecting a complete fiasco here, though hopefully it wont be as bad as the diabolically awful remake of The Amityville Horror that Bay was involved in. There are some movies that don't need remakes, Bay – go write an original script. Naturally huge recommendation on Hitchcock's The Birds. One of the seminal classics of the horror genre that gets overlooked when various places decide to publish those “best” lists to bore the tits off everyone. Hey, when are even two people ever going to agree on what constitutes the best ever horror movies? Without Hitchcock the horror genre would not have evolved to where it is today, and that doesn't include the half-arsed “movies” (term used loosely) being hoisted on the public by the studio system. We're talking real horror movies here, not gorenography. Take a trip to Bodega Bay, apparently the bird-watching is to die for.
ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ... The Master delivers on the horror front!
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