bad/awesome flixxx review: Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)

"I hear a mountain lion! I gotta get back to my house and you better get to your car!" - Tom Hill

"I just got so tired of all the fucking deaths in Iraq. I just thought- why not give peace a chance?" - Ramsey

"She's taking a shit. Natalie is watching her back." - Rod

Wow. This was a fucking CHORE. I've had people tell me about this flick for about a year now. People were dropboxing it to me, emailing it to me, anything they could do to get me to feel as bad as they felt about watching this piece of shit. Now, as always, just because its a piece of shit, doesn't mean its not entertaining. But, seriously, there are 3 and a half minute sections where this dude is DRIVING TO WORK!!! A cast of unknowns in a first timer's first delusion as a filmmaker, I present BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR!!!





The great thing about this movie is that it gives other aspiring filmmakers hope, that all you really have to have is a camera, some friends, and some spare time and you can make a feature length production. You don't even have to EDIT! HA! Yeah, my biggest problem here, and probably the reason Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim chose to host a screening of this in Hollywood is that its pretty much edited exactly like their show. Which isn't bad if you are trying to be funny for 15 minutes. This movie has FORTY SIX MINUTES of set up before anything actually happens!!! Then FINALLY in the last half of the movie, you get to the actual Birdemic. I love Tim and Eric's style of editing humor, but this is an exercise in patience. They had nothing to do with this by the way, It just reminds me of them, and why they dig things like this and THE ROOM. Our film begins with a young software salesman who spies a hot ass chick from high school one morning in a diner.



No way in the world his lame attempt to get her number would have ever flown in real life. Its like they were actually robots, and not real people. These people had no acting experience whatsoever. The funny thing is if instead of trying to say lines that they've memorized, they probably would have been more convincing if they'd have just tried to act like humans. So he gets the girls number, goes back to work. Similar to the scene where he's getting ready, and driving to work, and getting in and out of his car, and stopping for gas and all these mundane (real) but not necessary things that are usually skipped in the storytelling process, when he gets back to work, his bosses have sold the company and its gone public or something. So they are all rich. They then clap for a solid minute and a half. It is like chinese water torture. Ok, now, in some sort of effort to make a statement about global warming, Rod attempts to sell his idea of cheap solar panels to some big wigs. They bite and he's even richer. So he asks the girl out on a date. They fall for each other, he meets her mom. This is all still the set up by the way. Everything's fine in silicon valley. This is supposed to be in San Fran, but it looks more like Irvine.



Ok, so they've seen a dead bird on the beach and somehow 45 minutes have gone by, and we think the movie has got to be almost over, it seems like its been two hours. Nope, we haven't even begun yet! They rent a hotel to bang each other to celebrate his good fortune and hers (she landed a "victoria secret" gig as a "fashion model") and then we see a serene landscape. Actually a montage of serene landscapes. Early morning. All is well... until: EEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRGGGCCCH! Thousands of eagles and vultures lay waste to the towns. They are forced to stay in their hotel room until late in the day. Then they leave and find another couple. The dude suggests they grab hangers to defend themselves... Then they jump in his shitty van and head north. They find two kids on the side of the road whose parents are dead. They just pretend tons of cars aren't going by them, and people aren't in the background on the beach when they're shooting. You have to pretend with them or you'll go insane yelling at your screen. OK, but somehow, after suggesting they use hangers, this guy Ramsey has machine guns in his ride. WHAT???? Why would you even fuck with hangers when you had an M-16 in the Astrovan? So lots of people are murdered by birds.



Throughout the next 45 minutes, we witness the worst computer effects ever put to screen (and some of the most annoying screeching sounds over and over and over). There is an attempt to make a statement about the Iraq war, global warming, and other social world crushing topics as they encounter doctors, hippies and outlaws on the road. "Gas, $100 a gallon? what a ripoff!" Dude, you just became a billionaire, who gives a shit how much gas costs?! Then theres a statement about spoiled kids when the 2 kids won't eat the fish he caught for them and ask for a "happy meal". Fucking little assholes. Don't they see the world is ending? Then all of a sudden for no reason at all, the birds just fly away. Rod and Natalie, and the 2 kids stare out at the ocean for a full 4 minutes before the credits start, and then stay that way through the entire credits. No explanation, the waves just rolling in and out. Birds just becoming smaller and smaller in the distance. Some call it art. I call it shit. Those birds are quitters. Or maybe the writer quit. Either way, the ending wasn't written, it just manifested itself. Should you watch it? Maybe. Are you a horrible person? Yes, then, you should watch it, over and over. And you should cry.