Just okay

Rating: 6/10 (26 April 2006)

This is probably my least favorite Hitchcock film. Many of the reviewers seemed unnecessarily troubled by the lack of explanations in the plot. That ambiguity, of course, was part of the plot. Why did the birds suddenly organize and attack? We don't know. Not knowing why the threat exists is part of the terror. We take for granted that birds are just a non-threatening part of the scenery in our lives. What, says Hitchcock, would happen if birds, especially birds not particularly known as hunters like gulls and crows and ordinary starlings, suddenly and inexplicably appeared to start to prey on human beings. The birds are eco-terrorists, if you will. Clearly humanity has done something to ruffle the birds' tail-feathers. Caging them, as with the lovebirds, is perhaps the cause. Perhaps the cause is pesticide use or pollution. Whatever the cause, the birds are mad as hell and not going to take it any more. What that idea amounts to is a pretty good story line for for an installment of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, but not quite enough meat for a feature film. Add to that some mediocre acting by Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren in the lead roles (there was no chemistry between them whatsoever) and you have the recipe for a disappointing effort from Hitchcock. While I will admit that this movie scared the bejesus out of me when I first saw it on TV at age 8, it's really not all that frightening. It is ironic that in a film where birds are portrayed as apparently up in arms over their mistreatment by humans, in at least some scenes, Hitchcok had stage hands physically throwing live birds at Tippi Hedren to enhance the bird attack sequences. Overall, though, the bird attacks come off as pretty hokey. The general chaos scenes are pretty good, but the close ups are so obviously mechanical birds as to be laughable. I absolutely hate the sequence of shots where Hedren tracks the flow of the gas from the gas station to the man lighting his cigar -- the facial reactions are just a little too much, especially since all she's doing is watching the flow. This film is okay as a light diversion, but if you seek out the Hitchcock Hour on DVD, you will find many episodes that are more worthwhile than this mediocre movie.