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| The Birds |
I remember seeing this film when I was about 7 or 8 with
my Gran and being terrified of Birds for the next few months. I used to love when she came to babysit
myself and my brother as we used to always end up watching Classic films; in
fact I remember seeing this film in Black and White, which in my opinion makes
it scarier.
I put this film on the other night for Halloween and it
was my first time seeing it since then, at least 12 years since the 1st
time and it was my first time seeing the colour version and being honest the
horror elements didn’t stand up and the special effects really let it down (at
least in my opinion). Having said that though I still immensely enjoyed the
film and in my opinion it is still a classic and one of my favourite Hitchcock
films.
Ok to get started with the review proper, the story
starts off with our two leads Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) and Mitch Brenner
(Rod Taylor) meeting in a bird shop and the Mitch plays a trick on Melanie,
treating her like a sales assistant which she plays along with, he asks her for
some Love birds for his sister, as well as flirting with one another and setting
up the romantic element of the film. To
shorten the plot Melanie buys a pair of Love birds and plans to delivery’s them
anonymously to Mitch’s house via boat for his sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright)
and intends to leave Mitch a nasty letter but thinks better of it and instead
leaves a note for Cathy, on her way back across the lake she is attacked by a
seagull. Mitch then tends to Melanie and convinces her to stay for dinner and
she agrees and it’s here we meet Cathy and Mitch’s over possessive mother Lydia
(Jessica Tandy). Melanie stays the night in Annie Hayworth’s (Suzanne Pleshette)
house, who also happens to be Mitch’s ex-fiancé, she warns Melanie about Mitch’s
overprotective mother and how she ultimately broke the two of them up, that
evening a sea gull kills itself by flying into the house door.
The next day at Cathy’s birthday party the children are
attacked by Seagulls which Melanie, Mitch and Annie ward off, later that
evening sparrows invade the home and a neighbour is killed by the bird in his
home, who is found by Lydia whom freaks out. Melanie then comforts Lydia who
wants her to go to the school to get Cathy and bring her home, while outside
she notices a large group of crows gathered on the play ground (this scene
still terrifies me). Melanie and Annie (the school teacher) make a plan to
evacuate the school in a mock fire drill, while outside several of the children
are attacked by the crows. By this stage the police are now involved and are
reluctant to draw a link between the attacks and play down the birds
involvement in the neighbours attack instead putting it down to a failed burglary
attempt and putting the other attacks down as random unrelated incidents.
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| The scene that still terrifies me to this day |
At a dinner Melanie is on the phone to her father telling
him the story so far and in interrupted by local citizens who don’t believe her
until another bird attack begins and basically destroy the town. Melanie,
Mitch, Cathy and Lydia then board up the house and wait until daybreak to make
a run to the city, they are attacked during the night by a large group of birds
who nearly break in through the sealed doors and windows but ease their
attacks. During the night Melanie hears a noise upstairs and investigates and
is attacked by a group of birds that have broken into one of the upstairs
rooms, injuring her badly. Mitch rescues her and start the car for their escape
and its heard on the radio that the attacks have spread and that the national
guard may be called in to help with the unexplained attacks, the film ends with
the car driving into the distance with thousands of birds of different species
watching them.
As a result of this film to this day I’ll look twice when
I see a large flock of birds, but like I mentioned the special effects are
dated. I love how this film never explains why the birds are attacking and it doesn’t
show us winning over nature and shows us how vulnerable we really are against
the might of nature.
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