Hitchcock makes a masterpiece Ed Wood must have been proud of

Rating: 2/10 (19 August 2013)

A rich woman goes to a small coast town after a man she saw on a pet shop. Her arrival, however, coincides with strange happenings in the city as the birds gradually start attacking everyone.
I was attracted by it because of its status as a 'classical horror', appearing in many listings as one of the best horror films, and the fact it's made by Alfred Hitchcock.
I can't understand all the hype. Ed Wood made better films.
This film is so bad, most of the 'scary' scenes actually had me laughing. No just the 'that is too silly' laugh, but the 'I almost fell out of my chair laughing' laugh; nothing short of Monty Python or Chaplin have ever made me laugh this much.
I showed this film to some of my family; the adults were mostly shaking their heads and questioning how Hitchcock could have success with something like this, while the younger ones (10-14 years old) were laughing and later said it was the best comedy they ever watched.
The acting is beyond amateurish, with characters mostly making faces to the camera and shrieking to convey their shock being something straight out of a bad parody. It also shocks me that Hitchcock, who always cast beautiful women like Ingrid Bergman, Vera Miles or Grace Kelly to star in his films, would cast the rather ugly Tippi Hedren. Was there no beautiful/cute blondes available? The characters are not far behind with their terrible development, being pretty much caricatures of human beings; Hedren's character being the worst offender, with her motivations or actions. They also act inexplicably dumb at times: Hedren's reaction to the birds in the school being the best example, but also the information given by the radio news.
The special effects are terrible. Not just the usual background scenes, but the birds and their attacks are laughably badly done. Suspension of disbelief can only work so far; in here, the birds looked like bad puppets with the way they moved. I fell laughing at most 'attack' scenes, with the gas station one being my favorite. The fact this was Oscar-nominated is nothing short of a joke, you could find better effects in the silent era four decades before this.
But the very worst of all is the story itself. Hitchcock always managed to make his stories have a degree of sense, even his most fantastic tales like 'North by Northwest'. That doesn't happen here. There is no explanation at hand, not even a hint for us to go by. Even horrors like George Romero's zombies or crap like 'The Mist' leave a hint for us to work on, to base ourselves. Hitchcock offers nothing at all. He explained that, by giving a reason, the movie would turn into science-fiction; clearly, he must either be an idiot or not understand horror at all.
This is a terrible, nonsensical film that should be on par with the likes of 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' or 'Battlefield Earth'. It is as if Ed Wood himself wrote/directed/produced.