Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008)

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (NR) Review

"The Turds"

Billed (ha ha) by its director as a new entry into his personally conceived genre of the Horror Romance movie, Birdemic is not the kind of bad you can sit around with your friends on a friday night and laugh about.  Birdemic is such an utter embarrassment on every conceivable level (Editing, Sound, Writing, Special Effects, Acting) that its only success was how it got so famous.  Much like William Hung's American Idol success was a pop culture phenomenon that centered on exploitating a terrible dreamer, so is James Nguyen's film about a couple finding new love amidst killer birds.  It was self financed, self filmed and self promoted at Sundance by driving around in his family car plastered with fake birds.  He bought a midnight showing and filled it up with indy movie producers and schlock fans, people knew a cash cow when they saw one and it was bought for one million dollars and then excreted into our lives.

Indy films like this I try to give some leeway and crow about their positive points, but Birdemic is only an excuse to laugh at Nguyen and his inept filmmaking skills.  The first time the shoddy birds appeared on screen (shockingly late in the film) they squeezed a hearty laugh out of me.  An hour later and the same shoddy birds in the same awkward poses made me squirm in my seat, the wooden acting and terribly recorded audio made me want to plug my ears and hug my wallet in thanks that I hadn't spent any single dime on watching it.  The ham-fisted slapped on "environmental message" will set back the green movement for years, and I can't imagine anyone with half an IQ point not being redfaced over its lousy... well, everything! Shame on the films distributors for giving Bay Area Businessman/Crappy Film Director/Exploited Outsider Artist James Nguyen the ability to kill (cgi birds) ever again, I hear a sequel is in the works for 2013.  A man who can produce such a piece of work and feel good about charging someone to watch it deserves to have his taxes audited and his drivers license revoked, his morals are suspect.

This is the kind of film you make but only show a handful of friends every couple years, projected on a white sheet in someone's basement, secure in the fact that the shame is all yours and the fake-grins on their friendly faces will tell no one of what they've seen or who is to blame.

Never has a subtitle been so accurate about its content.

1 Exploding Hawks out of 10 (AWFUL)