If the birds don't get them, the lung cancer will.

Rating: 9/10 (28 October 2012)

Only a director of Hitchcock's calibre could transform a patently silly idea like killer birds into such a nerve wracking and thoroughly entertaining movie, one that proves without a doubt that he really is 'the master of suspense'.
The director spends the first half of his film investing purely in the characters, letting his audience get to know them, making the viewer care so as to increase the potency of the horror once they are eventually in peril. Before we even see the birds in action, Hitch shows exactly what his feathered fiends are capable of, with a truly shocking shot of a victim, eyes pecked out, covered in blood. The scenes when the birds attack are suitably vicious and gruesome, Hitch making it abundantly clear that no-one is safe from harm, not even children.
But it is the moments between the attacks, the calms before the storm, when the director really pulls out all the stops to show how just good he is at cranking up the tension. A flap of a wing, a few creepy echoey caws, screeches and squawks, a malevolent glance—that's all Hitch needs to have his audience on tenterhooks. Case in point: my favourite scene of the film, in which Melanie (Tippi Hedren) sits smoking yet another cigarette while crows slowly gather behind her; when she finally turns around, there's hundreds of the bloody things—superb!