Did you people see the same film I saw?

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

A Disappointing Continuation

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Rene Cardona Jr.'s spin on Hitchcock's THE BIRDS isn't just a bad movie – it's an incredibly trashy one, seemingly made with little regard for quality, coherence, editing or linear storytelling. Plenty of effort has been made to give the movie an international feel – parts of it were filmed in North and South America as well as Europe – and all that effort goes to waste in what is nothing more than a schlocky Z-grade attempt to emulate greatness. It has the same kind of quality to it as something like Bruno Mattei's ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH, except without the fun factor.Things do kick off on a good note, with an ultra-gruesome moment involving an eagle. There are some hilarious attacks of people being 'ambushed' by birds achieved by somebody chucking pigeons, off camera, at the cast members! Then the film loses it and turns into a rambling narrative, setting up about five different sets of characters for an hour or so before throwing them into siege situations: a party attacked; a camper van seeking refuge; a train at the mercy of flocking winged terror. None of this is as interesting as it sounds, and the gore effects are in short supply, limited to a few scratches on the back of people's hands and on their faces.Christopher Atkins and Michelle Johnson are set up as the nominal protagonists – a female reporter covering the avian crime and her cameraman sidekick. There's even some body-double nudity and a cheesy sex scene thrown in. However, these guys have little to do in the film and their acting absolutely sucks, with the kind of awful dubbing you expect from late '80s Spanish and Italian flicks. There's no characterisation anywhere in the film, and aside from a brief cameo from Italian star Gabriele Tinti, no interest from the varied cast.In the end the film becomes overwhelming senseless, with more pigeons being chucked about than is strictly necessary; there's an exploding eagle and some annoyingly whiny kids around too, including the most irritating little red-haired girl whose awful scream leads you to hope that a pigeon will fly down and pluck out her throat! No such luck. Cardona made a long string of Mexican exploitation movies, but this is one of his very worst. It's not the worst I've seen, though; it may be an absolutely diabolical film, but like Z-grade trash such as THE ABOMINATION, it's never boring.

"Alfred Hitchcock's classic film … but with loads & loads of additional gore" … See, even the text on the old VHS box warned me that watching "Evil Birds" would be a complete waste of time, and still I didn't listen! There's gore, all right, but this also happens to be one of the most retarded movies I've ever seen in my life. We all know Hichcock and his films were (and still are) imitated and copied endlessly, but this is undoubtedly the most shameless and blatant rip-off of his repertoire ever! The story lines are identical, only the elaboration here is hopelessly inane with miserable dubbing, pitiable dialogs, atrocious acting performances (cursed be that gay boy from "The Blue Lagoon") and lousily cheap and unconvincing make up effects. Since there isn't the slightest bit of suspense or atmosphere to experience, "Evil Birds" is unspeakably boring and thus doesn't even qualify as 'entertainingly awful'. The bird attacks are wannabe engrossing, but it simply isn't very petrifying to see a pigeon/dove/chicken approach the camera bit by bit. I guess it requires a talented filmmaker in the league of Hitchcock to make even the most nonthreatening little animal look threatening. Writer/director René Cordona Jr. is getting dangerously close to becoming my personal choice of worst director of all time. This is the fifth major disappointment in a row I see of him (after "Cyclone", "Night of a 1.000 Cats", "The Bermuda Triangle" and "Tintorera!") and easily the most embarrassing of them all. So far, I only enjoyed his jungle adventure knock-off "Treasure of the Amazon".

These include:1.) Bad dubbing and phonetically challenged foreign actors.2.) A TV news story entitled "Attack of the Killer Chickens!"3.) Close-ups of birds pecking faces apart and pulling out eyeballs, leaving only blood-squirting empty black sockets.4.) Gratuitous slow-mo flying and attack scenes.5.) A dense globe-trotting blonde couple who take time out from the carnage for a PG-rated bubblebath/champagne kissy kissy session.6.) Snappy dialogue reducing a worldwide epidemic of bird attacks to "feathered mutiny."7.) An annoying little brat who runs outside during the middle of a bird ambush just to get her greedy little hands on a party horn...leading to several unnecessary deaths.8.) Christopher Atkins talking to his penis.In case you haven't caught on, this is a low-grade rip off of the 1963 classic which cuts back and forth, from different countries to different people running away from someone offscreen throwing pigeons at them. American actors Michelle Johnson and Atkins are in the main segment about TV reporters who travel around investigating various attacks only to get ravaged on a train, but the story also covers a bickering couple, their two kids and a girl in a bikini attacked at a beach and people at a children's birthday party (there's even a little Veronica Cartwright knock-off named Cathy!).This film was also released as BIRDS OF PREY and was an international production that was filmed in Spain, Peru, Italy, Mexico, Morocco and Puerto Rico!Score: 3 out of 10 (for scattered laughs)

Oh, no, another italian low-budget saga! This movie is awful. The Director Rene Cardona Jr. has no idea how to work with his own script and these so-called "actors". The characters are unbelivably cardboard, the plot is weak, this movie is probably the worst remake ever made!