This scared me silly the first time I saw it

A young woman, Melanie Daniels (previously unknown model Tippi Hedren) goes to Bodega Bay, California, a small seaside village, to visit a man she just met and might be falling in love with, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). Where did they meet? At a pet store, where Mitch was looking for a pair of lovebirds, as a present for young sister (Veronica Cartwright). Unfortunately, the timing of Melanie’s visit is rather poor, as she visits just as all the common, ordinary, everyday birds in the area decide to attack people en masse. We're not talking about big scary eagles, vultures, condors, and hawks; we're talking about crows, seagulls, sparrows, starlings, etc. They are coordinated, they are vicious, and they are lethal. If that doesn't sound possible, watch the movie. We never know why they did this, or how widespread the attack is, or why it eventually stops. That just adds to the suspense, as the people wouldn't know those things either, if it were to actually occur. They only know the results, and the terror.

It is easy to take invading aliens, giant ants, zombies, or vampires, and make a horror film. In The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock took one of the most ordinary and innocuous things in the world - common little birds - and created true horror. This film is not for the squeamish, although it actually has a lot less gore and blood than most modern horror films. However, the scene in the farmhouse gave me nightmares the first time I saw the film.

Most modern horror films subscribe to the "More is better" concept, while The Birds shows you just enough to create true horror. I also think that this movie creates more suspense and tension than any other movie I've seen, with the possible exception of Alien. You know the birds are right there, but they don't always attack on sight. Sometimes, they just watch, which is more suspenseful and creepy. The schoolyard scene is the perfect example. The not knowing, the waiting to see, the readiness to flinch, are what makes many scenes perfect.

Setting - When I first saw this film, I remember being surprised by what parts of California were like. I guess I had pictured the whole state as being like Hollywood or Los Angeles. In Birds, we see small-town California, with rural areas and a beautiful coast. Bodega Bay looks very much like a place where many people would like to visit, if not live. I imagine that Bodega Bay has changed -- but I hope not too much.

Special effects - This film features some truly amazing computer-generated imagery.

(reads some Internet research)

As I was saying, this film features some truly amazing special effects, given that computer-generated imagery did not exist in 1963. So, how did they get large numbers of crows and seagulls to act like that? There are, to be sure, a few scenes, where a bird attack does not look quite real, but very few.

Actually, several things went somewhat awry during filming. When the seagull flew into the phone booth, it was not expected to break the glass pane, and Ms. Hedren had to have pieces of glass removed from her face. Another scene was done by throwing a live bird at Ms. Hedren’s face, and she ended up saying that week of filming was one of the most traumatic she had experienced.

Camera-work - Alfred Hitchcock directed this film, and he was known as a demanding perfectionist. This shows up most, in The Birds, in the camera-work. The panoramic shots of the landscape gave the viewer a good feel of the area, while the close-ups caught the horror of the attacks. The medium-distance shots were good at catching the suspense of the birds (maybe) about to do something.

Any realism to this film? There was an incident of birds (sooty shearwaters) slamming into windows and roofs in California in 1961. Supposedly, Hitchcock requested a copy of a newspaper article, describing the incident, before filming The Birds. However, the movie is based upon a 1952 novelette, by Daphne du Maurier, about a farmhand and his family being attacked by birds, near the Cornish seacoast right after World War Two. That might have inspired the farm scene in The Birds.

When I think of this movie, four things come to mind:

In Jurassic Park, the paleontologist says to the kid, "I bet you'll never look at birds the same way again." If many current theories about dinosaurs are correct, modern birds are their direct descendants. In essence, birds (big scaly ones) used to run the world, and maybe they might want it back. Are we sure that birds don't still run the world? They're everywhere. Maybe we're just new-comer house-guests. Is the clock ticking on us, with a feather on the button to stop it? House-guests stay at the whim and will and sufferance of their hosts.

Hmmmmmmm.