Hitchcock proved to us in "Psycho" that even a low-budget horror film can be art. The same applies for his deservedly famous creature feature "The Birds."

Rating: 10/10 (27 February 2010)

Alfred Hitchcock was the master of the thriller genre. He invented techniques that to this day are used by other filmmakers (though not to the same level) to stimulate excitement and dread in the hearts of the audience. And Hitchcock was willing to try anything new. By 1963, Hitchcock had made just about every kind of thriller he could. He'd made his sheer suspense thriller "Rear Window." He'd made his nonstop, lighthearted thriller "North by Northwest," his psychological thriller and ultimate masterpiece "Vertigo," and of course, need I say it, "Psycho." What else was there for him to try in the genre but a creature feature? The film he made was called "The Birds," and it is a richly complex thriller that, despite its flaws, reaches the level, I say, of being a masterpiece on the same tier as the films I just mentioned.
"The Birds" starts out not with an attack by a creature, but setting up the human story, a bold and efficacious move of storytelling. Tippi Hedren stars as Melanie Daniels, a San Francisco playgirl who travels to a small coastal town in northern California in order to pay a mischievous visit on the lawyer (Rod Taylor) who humiliated her. After she arrives in the town, strange incidents involving birds of all species begin to take place and before long, Melanie as well as the whole town begin to realize that birds have started an attack on humankind. And the most horrifying thing is, nobody can find out why.
Now in plot "The Birds" sounds corny and unbelievable. But like I've told people many times, plot is just an attention-getter. It's the story that matters and "The Birds" works on that level. Hitchcock was always a director to break conventions and he does that here. Instead of opening up with a clichéd scene like a bird attack, he opens up with our human story and works that well into the first hour of the picture before the attacks really start coming furiously. And this human story, most notably the relationship between Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor and their mutual friendship with a somewhat unhappy school teacher wonderfully played by the late Suzanne Pleschette really gets you involved, much more than you would expect to be in a movie of this genre. What else is daring? Try the fact that there is no music score. Bernard Herrmann is credited, but only as a sound consultant. And of course, there is the fact that not once throughout the whole picture is it explained directly to us why birds have all of a sudden started a war on humankind. That's a bold and surprisingly effective move than if Hitchcock had opted to go with a tired old scientific speech to further the fowl plot and extend running time. Tippi Hedren and the cast are very good in their roles and help translate the dialogue into the personalities of three-dimensional human beings. I believed and liked these characters, most notably the one played by Suzanne Pleschette, and that really got me involved when their lives were threatened.
As a thriller, "The Birds," of course, scores with excellence. Hitchcock at first just introduces little shocking moments to get us stimulated and then, when we know that there's a danger, he again goes with his suspense theory, where the buildup is long and drawn-out and the actual moment of the threat is run through quickly and there are some genuinely scary moments in this motion picture. Only a director of Hitchcock's status could make seagulls and finches and crows into some of the most frightening cinema villains, who scare me a lot more than say the modern-day slasher villains that try to become Norman Bates. "The Birds" utilizes some very good graphic effects to insert birds and human actors into the same shot and the composition is very good. There is a flaw in one scene, where a colony of birds flood into a house through a chimney and we can see palm-sized pheasants fluttering about in the shots, clearly a lot smaller than they would be, but that's a minor detractor. Hitchcock also keeps the level of horror under control by not pouring out fountains of blood, but using just enough of it to get a reaction from the audience.
"The Birds" is a thoroughly enjoyable movie and that's why Alfred Hitchcock is still one of the most popular directors of all time. He made great, original movies, but he made them for the audience and he wanted them to have fun. And "The Birds" is a lot of fun. Now if you've had problems with the way Hitchcock chose to end his movies in the past, you'll have your biggest fit with this one, but I implore you to try not to and enjoy the movie. This is Hitchcock's creature feature and one of the best I have seen.