I don't get it.

Rating: 3/10 (30 July 2017)

The first half of The Birds is a dull, soap-opera-y story involving Rod Taylor, his soon-to-be-girlfriend Tippi Hedren, his cold mother Jessica Tandy, sister Veronica Cartwright and ex-girlfriend Suzanne Pleshette. It might as well have been lifted from another film since it has nothing to do with the birds.
In fact, the birds don't begin their attacks until about fifty minutes into the movie. When they do there are some genuinely scary moments, although of course the special effects look rather dated today, even the fake blood doesn't quite look like the correct shade of red. We're never told why the birds behave this way, which makes the film pretty intellectually unsatisfying. They just start killing people for apparently no reason.
Finally, after witnessing much death and destruction, Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren leave town, but the birds are still hanging around en masse, ready to attack more people. I half expected a title card reading, "End of Part One", but no — that was the whole movie.
This film is called a classic by the critics. But most of the time I was bored, waiting for something to happen, and even when the bird attacks came, I couldn't help asking myself, "so when do we find out why they're doing this?"