company: Moviehead Pictures
year: 2008
runtime: 95′
director: James Nguyen
cast: Alan Bagh, Whitney Moore,
Janae Caster, Colton Osborne,
Catherine Batcha, Rick Camp,
Damien Carter, Laura Cassidy
writer: James Nguyen
cinematography: Dainel Mai
music: Andrew Seger
not on home video in the USA (yet . . .)
Birdemic: Shock and Terror is currently out in limited theatrical release through Severin Films, and will be playing the Landmark Uptown Theatre here in Minneapolis tonight and Saturday at Midnight. Originally self-released by Moviehead Pictures, Birdemic is currently OOP, but a special edition DVD will be coming from Severin Films in the near future.
There are good movies and there are bad movies, and then there is Birdemic: Shock and Terror, the feature debut of the undeniably enthusiastic if entirely talentless 40-something James Nguyen. One part travelogue, two parts romantic drama and three parts effects so dreadful they’d make The Asylum blush, Birdemic isn’t the sort of thing that will ever be confused with good horror, but the title does get things at least half right – it is shockingly terrible.
Of course, being shockingly terrible isn’t an instant death sentence for an independently financed and self-promoted schlockterpiece in this day and age, with a nationwide midnight movie revival in full swing. Shoddy production values, potential for unintended hilarity and a healthy dose of anti-genius seem to be all a film needs to become an overnight cult sensation in this environment, and like The Room before it Birdemic has been embraced by midnight audiences across the country. James Nguyen is undeniably better off now than when he financed the picture and I couldn’t be happier for him, as Birdemic is truly one of a kind.
Described as a ‘romantic thriller’ in the Moviehead Pictures press release announcing its production, there’s little in the first half of Birdemic’s running time to hint at the awesomeness to come. We follow Rod (Alan Bagh), a sales associate of some denomination with a lucky streak that never seems to quit, as he receives promotion after promotion while wooing successful underwear model Nathalie (Whitney Moore). We meet Rod’s friend Rick, a fellow sales associate and potential nymphomaniac who just so happens to be banging model Nathalie’s best friend, not that he matters at all. Rod and Nathalie turn out to really like each other and go on lots of dates, eventually winding up in a motel for a night of sultry no-budget G-rated love making.
This goes on for around forty five minutes and to be completely honest, it hurts. Birdemic‘s drama seems to be a testing the audience to determine just how much cinematic barbarism it can take. The dialogue is impossibly inept, the camera setups shaky and frequently unfocused, the audio gruesomely cut live-recorded mush, and the performances of the sort that you’d never want to hear anyway. I’ll admit that I was actually discouraged by it all, and more than a little dumbfounded at what may be the industry’s best argument yet for the continued existence of entry level community college film courses.
It seems pertinent to note that Birdemic does not improve once its second act begins. As inconceivable as it may seem, Birdemic only manages to get worse, rejecting mere badness in favor of diving headlong into the little-explored depths of sub-awfulness. The response seems almost instinctive, as though the film somehow realized that its only hope of surviving was to strive for an all new low. As the second act unspooled I found myself dumbfounded once again, though not in the discouraging manner I was becoming accustomed to. This wasn’t what I had expected. This was far, far worse, and I was loving every minute of it.
Birdemic‘s birdemic occurs literally without warning, the sky unexpectedly erupting with vultures and eagles after an endless procession of establishing shots of film locale Half Moon Bay. The sight is almost impossible to describe, with endlessly screeching blips of 3D animation dive bombing the scenery and exploding upon contact with their surroundings. To call the effects unbelievable would be a gross understatement, a trivialization of the shear magnitude of their under-achievement. The birds streak across the sky, infrequently flapping, or worse, hover in mid-air. And the screeching, my God, the screeching . . .
Our intrepid heroes set out across Half Moon Bay, defending themselves against the unlikely attackers with clothes hangers, assault rifles, and just about everything in between. In their escape they find fellow survivors, a pair of children, an Iraq veteran and his girlfriend. Together they take to the road, avoiding the ever-present avian menace while taking frequent pit stops. The group even makes time for an impromptu picnic, hardly the smartest of decisions in the midst of a birdemic. Members of the troupe invariably die, though I’ll not spoil who, or how things turn out in the end.
Birdemic is ecological horror at its most asinine, stuffed to the gills (gizzards?) with references to present day ecological and social concerns. Rod and Nathalie head to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth for a movie date, while a requisite know-it-all scientist later postulates that global warming is somehow responsible for the invasion of exploding, acid spitting birds. Other topics are brought up casually, never to be referenced again – SARS, avian influenza, the Iraq War, etc. Nguyen seems to have intended Birdemic to be a movie with a message, though just what that message was supposed to be is quickly engulfed by the one-two punch of mind-numbing romantic drama and impossibly implausible effects production.
Confounding, painful, and terrifically hilarious in more or less equal amounts, Birdemic: Shock and Terror makes for a unique viewing experience if nothing else. I could argue for either five stars or no stars here, but quantifying the success or lack thereof for something like Birdemic seems the very definition of futility. I can say that it’s probably the worst film any of you will ever see in a cinema, at least until Nguyen’s Peephole: The Perverted strikes, and that’s as high a recommendation as this one is likely to get.
