The Birds

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Written by: Daphne Du Maurier (story), Evan Hunter (screenplay)

Most people are at least passingly familiar with "The Birds" and some of its more famous sequences. Few people have actually seen the film from beginning to end, and I now count myself among those lucky few.

Intrigued by the mysterious Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) after he hits on her at a bird store (really!), Melanie Daniels follows him to his home in Bodega Bay under the auspices of delivering a pair of love birds for his younger sister's birthday. Chaos ensues as the local birds begin coordinating violent attacks on the people of the town, leaving several dead and the rest to wonder if they will survive the night.

What surprised me most was how long it took for the action of the film to develop. For the first half of the film (give or take), the story is merely merely one of cat-and-mouse romance between Brenner and Daniels. Of course, this adds to the tension - knowing that at some point, somehow, the birds are going to start attacking. (Although, this raises the question - if one didn't know that the birds were going to attack, would that tension exist at all? Or is that prior knowledge essential to the film?)

The effects are cheesy. Hitchcock, although a master of suspense and horror, worked best when relying on his actors to pull off the drama. It was hard to be afraid of a bird that either didn't look real, or seemed to be spliced in from stock footage.

The climax is a masterpiece, though. Considering that almost everything that makes the scene scary is happening completely off camera, it's amazing how terrified the film made me feel. The sounds effects, and small but important visual effects, make this scene. Knowing that all the birds are outside the house trying to get in (and that they occasionally find a weakness in the home's exterior) was absolutely frightful without needing any blood and guts. (OK, so there's a little blood and guts - but nothing like a slasher film).

The other great scene in the film occurs in the local diner, when the birds begin their first major attack on the town. The way the different personalities in the diner interact with each other and react to the situation is priceless. Although the dialogue isn't the strongest, the scene feels very real - as though that what normal people would do given some kind of avian apocalypse. That scene alone makes the film worth seeing at least once.

Although I'm often a fan of the "No explanation given; no explanation needed" philosophy, I'm afraid "The Birds" relied too heavily on that concept. We have no idea why the birds are doing what they're doing, how they're communicating with each other, or, well, anything. It's basically senseless violence. (Although, as I type this, now I'm wondering if there may have been a message about senseless violence in our society sewn into the film? I will ponder further.) The lack of explanation and the slow pacing of the first half of the film are definitely the major flaws and hinder the film from really taking off (pun intended).

Although I enjoyed the movie, I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for Hitchcock. It's not one of his strongest films, nor even emblematic of his work in general. It's worth seeing at some point because of the two scenes I mentioned, and because of it's place within the canon of American horror, but that's as much as I'll say for it here.