Every now and then, a film comes around that is made with such ineptitude and yet released with expensive fanfare that the Internet has to pause and say “Did you SEE that?”
We remember The Room. And now, we will never forget you, Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Writer/director/possible insane in a really happy way James Nguyen has done something...special.
Quick Plot: Superstar software salesman Rod catches sight of Natalie, an old high school crush turned fashion model--not just a fashion model, a BEAUTIFUL fashion model who assembles her portfolio out of shoots done at a One Hour Photo.
After about 45 minutes worth of dating--complete with double dates to great movies like An Inconvenient Truth, a visit with Natalie’s real estate dreaming mom, bar dances to autotuned lip synching and a romantic evening in Victoria’s Secret cover girl Natalie’s Days Inn apartment, the pair awaken to discover the world is being ATTACKED BY EAGLES.
Don’t you hate it when that happens? One day, your company has just been bought out for millions and your proposal for solar energy has instantly earned another $10 million in funding. You’ve re-met the girl of your dreams (whom you took English with in high school and yet still ask where she’s from) and there’s a pumpkin festival to boot. Life is great.
And then there are Atari caliber birds pecking townspeople’s faces off.
So yes, at a certain point, Birdemic makes good on its Hitchcockian references to go all out birding. Natalie and Rod luckily team up with another couple, this one well-equipped with clothes hangers, machine guns, and a van ideal for grabbing fellow survivors. Soon to join the crew is a pair of horridly obnoxious and always hungry children who really just want some Happy Meals. The group grows and shrinks due to some hilariously failed rescue attempts, toxic bird poop, actors who quit filming halfway through and spectacular stranger encounters, including a random admitted tree hugger with the world’s greatest wig. He has to go though, because he hears a mountain lion. But it was nice meeting you!
Sigh. Birdemic is truly something special, something that, much like Unborn Sins, just doesn’t come around often and really, shouldn’t. The more Birdemics we get the less exciting they are, because when you think of it, ANYBODY can make a movie. It’s the scale at which that anybody fails--and ironically enough, succeeds at getting it distributed in such a way where it seems real--that makes something like Birdemic or The Room a treat. I’ve rented awful amateur films before, as have many daring horror fans, but Birdemic’s all-out enthusiasm and obliviousness makes it the kind of event you have to witness.
Take, for example, the extended opening credits sequence wherein a car drives ever so slowly down a long country road. Nothing overly offensive about it, save for the fact that a) the music has about six bars and loops over and over again for nearly 6 minutes b) that the non-lead actors are listed as “Supporting Casts,” as if there were multiple groupings and c) that the actual driver was actor Alan Bagh who, according to the commentary, was holding up traffic by following the Nguyen’s direction to take things slow. It’s just one example in 90 minutes of more that shows a certain brand of innocent and optimistic moviemaking at its wors--I mean, finest.
Lessons Learned
Contrary to Joan Crawford’s mantra, wire hangers do have a purpose
Bratty kids are always hungry and quite picky about it
You never know what can happen in life. You might start off as a software engineer and end up, a SALES MAN!
Just because there are swarms of killer birds flying in the sky is no reason to not enjoy the outdoors with extended picnics, games of catch, woodsy number twos or fishing expeditions
Sometimes an apostrophe can go wherever it wants, whether it belongs there or not. Hello, Dream Model’s!
In order to fight global warming, we should act as astronauts. Or something
Victoria’s Secret lingerie is so comfortable, you won’t ever want to take it off...even when sleeping
Rent/Bury/Buy
Had Birdemic been intentionally made as badly as it is, the film wouldn’t be worth your time. However, having now listened to director James Nguyen’s commentary (and following a painfully honest one with stars Bagh and the much brighter Whitney Moore), I’m pretty sure that this was a film made from the heart...and really misguided brain. It is terrible, and therefore, awesome. Lines don’t get better than “I’m really hungry. I’ve been under the car for a long time,” “Gotta get back to work. You know, sensual work” and “Hey! There are dead people on the side of the road, let’s see if there are any survivors.” The sound drops out more than boobs appear in Showgirls, the effects are less impressive than a kindergardener’s popsicle stick picture frame and the politics more earnest than Al Gore at an open mike poetry slam, and man, it’s all amazing. The DVD includes a bevy of special features, including the aforementioned honest commentary from the lead actors who do indeed point out just what kind of a film they discovered they were making following their auditions in a high school parking lot. It’s THAT kind of movie.
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| And it's spectacular. |
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