Spooky review special- Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Being someone who is not at all a fan of horror films, I've decided that my special Halloween reviews will not be scary movies in the traditional sense. The scares from these movies will be that someone thought to not only make but also release these films. It feels only appropriate that we start with the #2 rated film on the IMDb bottom 250 list. This is: Birdemic.

For those of you fortunate enough to have never heard of Birdemic, it's a film about birds who go crazy and attack people. Imagine that scene from The Core where the birds start smashing into windows, except now it's entirely CGI that was made by a two year old bashing away at a computer for a week. How could this possibly go wrong? Well, it turns out a lot. Like, a hell of a lot. I'll start at the start.

The story (or what they've passed for one) is about a guy called Rob? He has a job. It is going pretty well. So well that figures like one million dollars, ten million dollars and even one billion dollars are thrown around like they're Dr Evil in a particularly indecisive mood. Then he meets/spots in a restaurant a girl called, for the sake of this review at least, Blatant sex appeal. Now, being a man and the protagonist of our gripping story, Rob falls for Blatant sex appeal and then some stuff happens. l literally can't describe it any better than that. It's just a collection of events that happen and feature the happy couple. This would be moderately passable for 10 minutes in a decent length movie, where it kicks up twenty notches in the remainder of the film. But this goes on for 47 minutes, 47 minutes of a 90 minute film. Over half the film passes before the birdemic even starts in a film called Birdemic! And it's not like this kind of film needs exposition You're watching this film because either you want a good action film or you and your mates want a horrendous film to laugh at. Exposition = not required. Once the birdemic commences, you'd at least expect it to get more exciting or at least laughable. Oh no. It only gets worse.

From the moment the actual birdemic collection commences, you realize something is horribly wrong. Why do the birds look crappy? Why are there 2 different bird animations? Who decided that this film should be allowed to exist? Whatever the answers to these questions, the animation and general quality of the birds is the most ridiculously awful thing ever put to film. Anyone who has had the sheer misfortune of seeing this film will tell you in an instant that the animation of the birds is one of the worst and most poorly done things, not just in this film, but in all of cinema. In fact, I have seen joke videos with awful effects that somehow managed to have better effects than this. And yet this was still released! I could (if I hated money) go onto amazon and buy it. I am almost certain that given the same program and time span the animators for this film were given, I could bash my head on the keyboard and still make better effects.

Another (admittedly for all the wrong reasons) notable bit of the film is the acting. Or rather, the lack of it. This is the kind of film that would cause porn actors to be winning Best actor Oscar nominations, left right and center. Every line sounds like the actors were in the middle of double French and they had lost all hope of every seeing anything again other than whatever the past participle is. And at times, the acting was so bad it made me wish I was in double French instead of watching them stumble through letters on a page. Actually, that was a lie. This is superior to double French anyday, I just needed some huge boast to prove how bad the acting was. Basically, the acting sucks, double French sucks. These are facts people, live with it.

The final point I would have to make about this train-wreck that calls itself a film is how it somehow decided that as well as being poorly acted, animated and directed, it should also spread some important messages about the world around us. For example, the film talks about the idea of us being the ones killing Earth, not the Earth killing us. What is most painful is that it not only tries to educate us but that it does so with the subtlety that Michael Bay uses when dealing with explosions. Case in point, the only people that are attacked (on screen) are in cars. But we also have the subtle as a nuke theme of war and fighting. There was a moment where a charaacter said, and I quote "I'm sick of the killing in Iraq. Can't we just give peace a chance?" Yup. Subtle, huh. I love being lectured by a film that thinks it's a horror but is actually closer to a comedy.

Overall, this is probably the worst film I've ever seen. I could not reccomend this film any less. The one thing I could possibly see as a good thing about this film is that I imagine it's hilarious when watched with friends. But when watched alone? Not worth it. Not even a little bit. It's a series of scenes full of bad acting, poor editing and the worst animation you could ever wish to be spared from. Which is why Birdemic: Shock and Terror gets my lowest ever rating of