There are two types of terrible movies: the big budget, mainstream travesties, and the small-scale train wrecks helmed by inexperienced, inept filmmakers. Of these two, films of the latter category are often more enjoyable to behold. There is little joy in watching Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho; it is no more than a series of bad decisions made by normally talented people. Yet there are films such as The Room that are so incredibly, singularly awful that they come all the way back around to be satisfying entertainment. The latest film of this variety to rise to prominence is James Nguyen’s Birdemic: Shock and Terror; a film made for less than $10,000, and I’d like to know where most of that went. When you’re making a film as small as this, it takes a near-revelatory level of ineptitude to rise to cult prominence. Luckily, Birdemic is just that.
To say Birdemic: Shock and Terror was slightly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock is an understatement akin to saying that Oasis might have listened to the music of The Beatles at one time or another. For instance, the piece of music played during the opening credits sounds very much like the work of a poor man’s Bernard Herrmann. (Actually, the music itself isn’t all that bad, as it seems to subtly hint at impending danger. Though all impact is immediately ruined once the track jarringly starts over seemingly at random.) The film’s first half even includes a Psycho-esque misdirect which may fool the audience into thinking they’re watching a touching love story between two dimwitted twentysomethings. Then, much like a knife to Janet Leigh’s midsection, the birds begin violently attacking like kamikaze pilots. Of course, I may be giving Nguyen too much credit. It’s far more likely he just had no idea what he was doing.
These two twentysomethings I speak of go by the names of Rod (Alan Bagh) and Nathalie (Whitney Moore). The former is a software salesman who is doing quite well for himself, and the latter is a fashion model who goes from working at a run-down strip mall to Victoria’s Secret literally overnight. (Heck, more like a single afternoon.) The first half of the film follows these two lovebirds as they go on a handful of dates and eventually sleep together. For a film called Birdemic: Shock and Terror, there is surprisingly little shock to be found in this first half. And even less terror. (Unless you count the acting, ka-CHING!) Instead, we watch as the characters talk about such riveting topics as software sales, career advancement, and how a day without sex is a day wasted, man.
Another popular conversation topic amongst these characters is environmentalism. Rod watches various news reports about melting polar ice caps, wildfires, and a racing event that will use only hybrid cars. He even decides to invest in a solar panel for his home. At first he is hesitant due to the $20,000 price tag, but once the salesman knocks it down to $19,000 it suddenly becomes a steal. Later, he and Nathalie decide to take in a movie with their friends Mai (Mona Lisa Moon, totally her real name) and Rick (Danny Webber). What movie, you ask? Why none other than An Inconvenient Truth, one of the greatest date movies ever made! What follows is an actual conversation the characters have as they walk out the theater. Verbatim:
ROD: Man! That was a good movie, An Inconvenient Truth.
RICK: That is it. I’m getting myself a car that’s environmentally friendly.
ROD: Good, you’re finally listening to me.
RICK: Yeah, right. Oh, pfft. Hey, Mai and I got to get back to work, so, uh…
ROD: Work?
RICK: Yeah, you know. Sensual work.
NATHALIE: Oh, I see. Understood.
I added that last part just to give you an idea of the level of writing we’re dealing with here, but I think the first part well-illustrates the subtlety with which this film communicates its environmental message. (Though to be honest, I’m not so sure James Cameron’s Avatar was much more subtle.) And in case you didn’t get the idea by then, Nguyen throws in a few characters toward the end just to drive the point home further. First, there is Dr. Jones (Rick Camp) who delivers a speech that basically says the following: it is global warming that has caused the birds to suddenly go insane and claw everyone’s eyes out so they look like victims of the Boondock Saints. He also claims that the birds are not the dangerous animal, but “it’s the human species that’s the dangerous, menacing and terrifying animal.” He’s not entirely wrong, but I think the killer birds pose the more imminent threat.
Then later, Birdemic introduces us to a character listed in the credits as “Tree Hugger.” He has lived in the woods for years, apparently, and he is worried about the effects global warming is having on the climate. Also, he wears a wig:
Of course, the plot and characters alone are not what make Birdemic: Shock and Terror such a memorable crapsterpiece. Its greatest flaws exist purely on a technical level; otherwise I could see how a larger Hollywood studio might, might green light this film. It would likely be an absolute snooze, mind you, but mainstream films with far worse plots have been made. What’s wonderfully bizarre about the film is that Nguyen has little-to-no idea how to create any kind of continuity. Each cut in Birdemic is absolutely jarring, as the sound often completely mutes and then starts up again as each shot begins. One shot’s audio track may be at a greater volume than the next, and sometimes there’s absolutely no sound whatsoever.
The ineptitude is also astonishing on a visual level. In particular, there are the “CGI” birds, which don’t appear to fly as much as they sit in place on the screen while the characters swing hangers around. They are also apparently made of dynamite, as when they crash into buildings they suddenly explode. Beyond the birds, Nguyen just has no sense of how to stage his action. I’m not saying this is an easy thing to do—making a movie is hard, despite the vitriol punks like me might spit through our keyboards—but we have grown so accustomed to competence that watching a film like Birdemic is a startling experience. Every scene in Birdemic: Shock and Terror is stilted to the point of hilarity, horribly-acted, and it seems to be held together by Scotch tape and Elmer’s glue.
There’s a larger question that surrounds such atrocities as Birdemic: Shock and Terror and The Room, and that question is this: why do we give a crap about these films? Why do we all decide to gather around for two hours and watch a film we know in advance is horrible and inept when we could just as readily go on Netflix Instant and watch, say, Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull? In my humble opinion, much of the appeal of these films comes from their ability to provide a window into the minds of their creators. The average person does not have the energy to make any movie, yet people like Tommy Wiseau and James Nguyen had the tenacity not only to come up with the ideas for their films, but also to write them, shoot them, edit them and release them. We’ve all had ideas for movies that we think will be great, but will we ever actually make them? Not a chance. It takes a strange, strange soul to devote months of their life to a project like this. As a result, the existence of the final product is just as mystifying as the film itself. The entire subject reminds me of a Patton Oswalt bit about the film Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, where he expresses his shock that someone could actually make something so horrid:
“I’ve started ten other screenplays and I get halfway through and I go ‘F--- it.’ I just give up. I have no discipline. I this guy thought up Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People and f---ing finished it! That means one of two things: either he never had a moment’s doubt … or here’s what’s worse: what if he had moments of doubt and then f---ing worked through them? That’s so much worse for me!” - Patton Oswalt
In a strange way, this fascination we tend to have with the terrible is likely because of the feelings Oswalt expresses here. It is compelling to me that a man like Tommy Wiseau is able to pour his entire (obviously disturbed) soul into a horror like The Room. Watching these films, you get a real sense of who these inept auteurs are as people and just how insane they must be to work through the fact that their film is absolute trash. Whether or not they were blind to the flaws of their work, it is a fascinating mentality to think about. We flock to films like Birdemic and The Room because they were able to clear the hurdles that kill off most films in their infancy. Somewhere, Stanley Kubrick’s unproduced Napoleon script is sitting on a bookshelf collecting dust while James Nguyen’s Birdemic: Shock and Terror is readily available for public consumption at any hour of the day. We are attracted to these films simply because they exist while so many superior films do not.
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