BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR (2010) ****

Usually, I will take bad practical effects over bad CGI effects any day.  Birdemic:  Shock and Terror is the one exception to the rule.  Imagine if The Birds was remade with birds that looked like something out of a Nintendo 64 game.  Now imagine that they can only move in the same three or four motions throughout the whole movie.  (Hovering, flying left, flying right, and kamikazing into the ground and inexplicably exploding.)  To continue the Nintendo theme a bit further, the scenes where our heroes find a random cache of weapons and shoot the birds out of the sky play like a cinematic version of Duck Hunt.  

Now, being the bad movie connoisseur I am, I had heard of Birdemic for years and years, but I never sat down to watch it because I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to the hype.  I am a mature individual, and I can admit when I am wrong.  I say this with utmost sincerity… I was wrong.  Not only does Birdemic:  Shock and Terror live up to its Z-Grade legend, it exceeded my expectations.  This is one of the best bad movies I’ve seen in a long time.  (And of course, by “bad” I mean “entertainingly awful”.)

We’re talking Troll 2 levels of goodness (badness) here.  

What’s wacky about the movie is that the first half plays like some sort of creepy ass rom-com with one of the sketchiest meet-cutes in screen history.  Then, almost exactly halfway through, the birds attack and it becomes a no-budget Hitchcock riff.  Surprisingly enough, I found the first half to be slightly stronger as it emits a jaw-droppingly bizarre yet sincere depiction of a thoroughly unlikeable character and expects us to root for him.  Oh, and did I mention this section of the movie also contains a hilarious dance number set to the tune of the incredible “Just Hanging Out”?

I know there’s a big debate raging about ChatGPT, and whether or not it should be used to create “content”.  Well, this movie is thirteen years old, and it often feels like the dialogue was written by AI.  The “hero” Rod (Alan Bagh) almost always yammers on and on about his job while his date Nathalie (Whitney Moore) talks about how her mom wants her to go into real estate, even though she’s a highly successful Victoria’s Secret model.  Now don’t get me wrong.  The stuff with the shoddily rendered killer birds is hilarious.  It's just that I found the bafflingly constructed dialogue scenes in the early going to be even more compelling.  

Honestly, these scenes contain some of the worst stilted dialogue and horribly wooden acting I’ve even seen in a motion picture.  That is no hyperbole.  That is a fact.  It also contains some of the worst editing of all time.  Nearly every fade-out or transition scene is botched, and there are cuts that are just downright perplexing.  The sound is also inconsistent, which I guess happens when you are making a low budget movie, but it’s inconsistent within the SAME SCENE.

What makes the movie WORK is the fact that writer/director James Nguyen’s heart is in it.  He’s sincere.  He wants to save the environment.  That’s why he wrote approximately four hundred speeches about global warming into the screenplay.  You got to appreciate a filmmaker who wears his heart on his sleeve like that.  In fact, I’m reminded of another filmmaker lacking in talent who similarly wore his heart on his sleeve.  That’s right, I’m talking about Ed Wood.  Yes, I would mention Birdemic:  Shock and Terror in the same breath as Glen or Glenda.  Both are just dripping with the directors’ passion.  They are as different as night and day in a lot of regards, but one thing is certain:  Only their respective directors could’ve ever concocted that story and brought it to the screen with such sincerity.  

Sure, it may feel a tad too long in places.  However, that feeling might just come from the fact you’re getting too much of a good (bad) thing.  Could it have been… say… ten minutes shorter?  Possibly.  Then again, what would you cut?  I wouldn’t want to miss the iconic tree hugger scene.  Or the double decker bus scene.  Or the random tribute to “Imagine”.  I wouldn’t trade those moments for the world.  In fact, I’m already kinda itching to see it again.