The Birds

The Birds has the usual Hitchcock touches. A chase, guilt, interesting camera technique and birds. The story starts out innocently enough, with birds acting weird. They soon start attacking people and gradually their attacks escalate in ferocity. What I liked about the movie was the way Hitchcock built up the tension leading to the attacks. He didn't unleash his villians until about half way through the film. In that time we get to know the characters in the peaceful town of Bodega Bay. Once all the introductions are in place, the birds start their rampage. I enjoyed the way the birds lighted upon the playground equipment as Tippi Hedren sat on the bench. The choice of no score was interesting. The soundtrack is filled with the screeching of birds gone mad, and for a nearly forty year old film, it still holds up well. I would like to see The Birds done as a special edition DVD, see if they can boost the sound up to what Hithcock would have wanted.

This is one of Hitchcock's most well-known movies. Along with Psycho, it's the movie that most people identify with him. Many pages have been written about it and surely there will be more. I know that the superb technical aspects of the movie have been discussed a lot, so I'll try to focus on something I noticed yesterday when I watched it.

It's scarier when there are no birds on screen. The tension, the silence, the uncertainty, the mystery. That's what suspense is about.

I was amazed of how carefully Hitchcock builds the suspense in this movie. You watch the birds standing there, and they do not move, they are just waiting. Even when you think they are dumb something tells you they are thinking. They are analyzing your moves.

This was possible with the aid of a top-notch screenplay, and great performances of the actors. This was probably the most difficult film for Hitchcock, specially for the technical aspects that were involved, but when you watch it, it really was worth the pain.

The main plot is well-known: Melanie Daniels(Tippi Hedren),a young girl goes to Bodega Bay looking for Mitch Brenner(Rod Taylor),a handsome man she met in San Francisco, when suddenly, the birds start attacking humans by no reason. Pretty straight forward, and by this date very outdated, but Hitchcock adds his magic and the script spices this with the very complex relationships between the characters.

The complex relationship between Mitch and his mother Lydia(played by Jessica Tandy), and the conflict that she has with Melanie is very interesting and brings back memories from Psycho. Also, Melanie's relationship with her own mother and the bond that she creates with Lydia and Mitch's 11 years old sister Cathy(Veronica Cartwright) is fascinating.

The scene when the four of them are trapped inside the house with the birds waiting outside is classic; not only is, as I wrote above, a perfect example of the use of suspense, it is an awesome study of the characters and how their relation grows. I think that this particular movie was main inspiration for George A. Romero's claustrophobic climax in his landmark film "Night of the Living Dead"(1968).

The technical aspects may be the focus of many studies, but the characters deserve to be praised, even the support cast with a few lines develop a personality of their own. The restaurant scene is Hitchcock at his best with witty dialogs that are both humorous and creepy. Very good ensemble.

Overall, this is an awesome movie, many reviewers have said it, I know. But I wanted to point that beyond the technical advances this experimental movie features, it is a perfect example of why Alfred Hitchcock is considered, "The Master of Suspense".

9/10. Classic.

Critics have wrung their hands over what this movie really means since it was released in 1963. So I may as well take a stab at it also (pun intended). On a superficial level, the movie is just what it appears to be - another Hitchcock horror film designed to scare the wits out of you and purchase large amounts of popcorn and soda to keep the theater going. After seeing how bad things can get in the movie, you are happy to resume your life. Beyond that, the movie seems to want to take us to a place suitable for comparing humans and birds, both similarities and differences. Like birds, humans tend to peck on an individual level and as a group. Human behaviors such as possessiveness and fear can also lead to loosing freedom and being confined to a cage. Both birds and humans are also territorial. Human characteristics like intelligence, planning, and vengeance are also imputed to the birds in this movie. All this could conceivable create conflict when the interests of birds and humans are at odds, such as competing for fish and roosting space in a seaside town. Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) starts to look almost like just another crow perched on the hill watching on Mitch whose hen-pecking mother apparently chased her off wrecking her romance with Mitch. Melanie is similarly attacked by a gull in her desperate bay crossing for Mitch's attention. She learns quickly that the bay is for gull's to hunt, not rich SF debutantes. The soap operatic-level plot with dysfunctional characters and town ultimately beg for resolution and that's when Hitchcock does what he does best - mercilessly dispatch them with horror and disaster that would school even the likes of Irwin Allen. As the birds really go on the offensive, and things start blowing up, we are shown the town from the crazed, fluttering bird's eye view. One can infer that the birds are fed up with humans occupying their town and living space. The movie reveals two completely different, but competing species, one a feathered descendant of the dinosaurs, and the other from apes. Thoroughly trounced, the humans retreat and the birds re-capture their territory. One is left to ponder whether two completely different species can ever co-exist and live in peace, or is it always a powder keg of age-old grievances just waiting to blow.

What if..... imagine the unthinkable happened, and all of a sudden, The Birds attacked....

You have to hand it to Hitchcock, he knew how to scare people, by taking the ordinary, the everyday, and twisting it around, and making it scary, he did that pretty much to perfection here.

So the first half of the movie is slow, it's almost sedate, not a lot actually happens, however the second half is completely different, you can only imagine what audiences back in 1963 thought, as of 2022 it still terrifies.

It looks really good, the special effects for the time actually hold up very well.

Tippi Hedren is impressive as Melanie, it's a very sincere, strong performance.

The next time you put some bird food out for the jackdaws and magpies.....just wonder what if, what if the unthinkable did actually happen!

Great hooror from the real master of suspense, 9/10.

The first and only time I've watched this movie was with my mom when I was a little kid. Back at that time, the movie frightened me to new levels, as it was horrifying to see flocks of birds attacking people mercilessly.

I don't remember the actual plot of the story, which consists of a San Francisco socialite following a boyfriend to a small town, where all sorts of birds suddenly begin to attack people. I just remembered the birds viciously attacking the town's residents, people trapping themselves in buildings and gas stations blowing up, indirectly caused by the birds.

Unlike conventional horror movies, where you would normally see ghosts, goblins, vampires and zombies, "The Birds" is a film that gives you a normal everyday creature suddenly attacking people in huge numbers, something you don't expect to witness. This, as a result, is a very interesting concept for a horror movie and definitely send chills to your spines.

All the scenes of mayhem, chaos and people running for their lives are disturbing, yet suspenseful. One of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest works, this movie is a must-see for any horror movie fan.

Grade B+