IMDB Bottom 100: Number 5 - Birdemic 2

Number 5: Birdemic 2 – The Resurrection (2013)

So, despite all sense and logic, the first Birdemic movie was a cult hit. Enough so that a sequel was made.

To sum up the story so far: some birds attacked and then flew away, all due to global warming. That was easy, a whole film in 12 words.

The sequel is the same as the first movie but with the insanity turned up to eleven.

Now we have pre-historic birds to deal with, resurrected by the acid rain from the tar pits in LA. So, the heavy handed environmental message is still there, thank goodness.

There is also another point been made about the Hollywood studio system. These big studios don’t give directors creative control over their films you see, not like in the Indies where you can make any old pap. This is not something James Nguyen will ever have to worry about of course.

In terms of structure, it’s identical to the first film. It’s 45 minutes of nothing before the kamikaze birds strike.

The first part is about an award-winning director Bill and his struggles to make his movie while seducing a naïve young actress, Gloria. That’s not quite how its presented but it’s basically what happens. Rod and Nathalie are back! And their funding Bill’s movie.

In fact, all the old gang are back: the scientist guy who gives another lecture on global warming; Nathalie’s mum (who is actually producer Patsy van Ettinger, who has produced all of James Nguyen’s movies. So now you know who to blame); Damian Carter has some new material to serenade us with; Treehugger is back and now he’s a reality TV star.

Other highlights include:

• -          An attack by the worst looking CGI jellyfish you’ll ever see (which ironically is also the best CGI jellyfish you’ll have ever seen. How many others can you think of?)
• -          A great bit of continuity. Tony, one of the children from the first film, has now been adopted by Rod and Nathalie. To explain other child Susan’s absence, he says ‘she got a disease from that fish that Rod cooked.’ Apparently, he improved that. Bravo, young man, bravo.
• -          Everyone’s favourite modern trope: zombies. Acid rain brings the dead back to life apparently. On a side note, when people get buried isn’t it usually in their finery? Suits and fine dresses and such. These zombies are just wearing regular clothes.
• -          Faces been blurred because they didn’t clear their image rights
• -          Attacking birds with coat-hangers again. Rod is not content with this and feels he has to crescent kick them. Also, guns have unlimited ammo in this universe.

My absolute favourite moment though, is when they are being attacked by killer birds on the set of Cabot Cove (home of Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote. Yes, it is the real set but they only had an hour to film before it was opened to tourists). This is the moment one of the characters (he’s just bird fodder so he doesn’t need a name) feels it is important, no, absolutely vital, that he tells us ‘Jaws is my favourite movie.’ Ok. Thanks for sharing. I don’t know how they could ever have got out of their situation without that information.

I don’t know the connection either.

Sticking rigidly to structure of the first film, the killer birds fly away at the end. Because movie. Also, if you want to survive in this world, you've gotta wear green. Green, you see? The environment, save the planet, etc.

Only skimming the surface again, the film is hilarious in its ineptitude. Student film-makers would be embarrassed to have made this.

The best news though? Birdemic 3 is rumoured to be in production.

Bad Movie Appreciation Society, #2: Birdemic

This film is amazing. No mere words can explain how brilliantly bad this movie is but I shall endeavour to try. Think of Ed Wood at his worst, multiply the badness by a 1000 and you're still a long way off.

Birdemic (or Birdemic: Shock and Terror to give its full title) is a homage to Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds with a heavy environmental message. It was made in 2010 and is directed by James Nguyen. 

Now I have to be fair to Nguyen here, Birdemic was made for next to nothing in film terms (about $10,000) and it does show in the special effects. Nguyen put a lot of effort into making it and promoted the film at the Cannes festival himself.

Bad special effects can be forgiven but there are other things to making a film less dependent on money. Does the story make sense? Does the dialogue flow? Is that really the best actor you could get? Do you even need this character? Or that scene?

At some point or other in the movie, Birdemic fails on all these things.

So, the story such that it is. For the first half hour or so, nothing of note happens. To go back to The Birds, Hitchcock uses the first part of the film to ratchet up the tension, Birdemic wastes it on banality.

We meet a dull software salesman called Rod who meets a girl he used to go to school with (Nathalie) who is now a Victoria's Secret model but still does all her photo shoots at the one-hour photo store.

Then he buys some solar panels for his house and we get a full explanation on what solar panels do (if there's anyone left in the world who doesn't know).

Rod's software company then makes a big money deal. Obviously this means all the employees will now leave that company and it will cease to trade (seriously, that is what happens). So Rod sets up his own solar panel business and makes big deals with his highly persuasive one-slide powerpoint presentations.

Rod, Nathalie and some friends go watch the movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Rod's friend, who was previously of the Jeremy Clarkson school of motoring announces he is now getting a hybrid (do you think there's some sort of theme emerging here?).

Rod and Nathalie then go to a Vietnamese restaurant and are then awkwardly dancing to a rather bizarre song.

Here are some of the lyrics:

A cool summer breeze, making me feel at ease
The barbeque is broilin’ and Uncle Phil is scorin’
Big Momma’s in the kitchen and everybody wishin’
That she’s fixin’ they favorite dish

Just hanging out, hanging out

Hanging out with my family, going to have a paaaaarty

Then out of nowhere, the birds attack. Until this moment you’d probably forgot the name of this movie was Birdemic, so few are the birds you’ve seen in this film.

From here on out you are treated to some of the worst CGI birds you’ve ever seen. Oh, and they make sounds like howlitzers and explode on impact. And spit acid, as birds do.

Our heroes fight off this avian menace with coathangers and go on a road trip to where I’m not exactly sure. Along the way they pick up a couple of children and become surrogate parents. They meet a guy who’s job seems to be to watch a pond and no invasion of killer birds is going to get in the way of that but he still has time to give a lecture on global warming.

They meet a guy who lives in the forest. He explains to them how global warming is raising the number of Spruce Bark Beetles that are killing all our trees (damn them!) and a forest fire spontaneously bursts out.

They end up on a beach where Rod discovers fishermen have been wasting their time for years using bait to catch fish, all you need is the rod. The evil birds then show up but this time are chased away by ‘good’ birds whose existence was hitherto not mentioned.

Rod, Nathalie and their new adopted kids then watch as the birds fly away out to sea. For a long time. A really long time.

Let’s get technical. The actors are abysmal, probably just dragged in off the street as Nguyen went along. The script is awful. Having an environmental message is all well and good but delivering it in such a ham-fisted manner with characters shoe-horned in to give overlong lectures is not the way to go about it.

Even going to basics such as camera angle and framing are done poorly. Background music is too loud, drowning out the character dialogue (though arguably that’s a good thing).

I want to give this balance, and point out something good about Birdemic but there isn’t anything. It’s just bad, bad, bad.

Reading it through you may be under the impression I don’t like Birdemic but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This level of ineptitude is a marvel to behold. It’s awesome in its awfulness.

And apparently, there’s a Birdemic 2…