THE BIRDS--Still Able To Chill And Terrify

After having basically laid out the blueprint for the modern horror film with his groundbreaking 1960 shocker PSYCHO, Alfred Hitchcock re-emerged three years later with THE BIRDS, a very different but equally stunning horror film, based on a Daphne Du Maurier novella, that, like its predecessor, turned out to be immensely influential.

Tippi Hedren, the mother of Melanie Griffith, made her film debut here as a San Francisco pet shop employee who, on an impulse to spite a lawyer (Rod Taylor) she has a run-in with, drives up the coast fifty miles to Taylor's home in Bodega Bay to deliver a pair of love birds to him. She rows across the bay to Taylor's home, sneaks in, and delivers the love birds. But as she's pulling back into port in town, a seagull scuffs her.

She soon befriends not only Taylor, but his mother (Jessica Tandy), sister (Veronica Cartwright), and the local school teacher (Suzanne Pleshette). And while all that is going on, the local bird population acts increasingly agitated. One night, at Pleshette's house, while Pleshette and Hedren are having coffee, they hear a crow smack against the front door. This, even though there happens to be a full moon.

The next day, it happens. At the Bodega Bay school, while a birthday party is being celebrated on the playground, hundreds of birds inexplicably attack the children. This is only the beginning. Later that same night, Hedren, Taylor, Cartwright, and Tandy are besieged by hundreds of sparrows flying down the chimney at Taylor's home. The following day, practically the entire avian population of northern California swoops down on the entire town, creating mass pandemonium and terror, with Hedren momentarily trapped inside a phone booth near the local diner. When Taylor manages to get Hedren back into the diner, one of the locals accuses her of being the cause of all this: "They said when you came, it all started! I think you're evil!"

That same night, with Taylor's house boarded up after being attacked, the birds mount an even more furious attack outside. Hours later, with the attacks seemingly subsiding, Hedren ventures up into the attic, only to find a gaping hole torn in the roof. She is then beset upon by hundreds of crows in a long, drawn-out sequence (legend has it that this was Hitchcock's way of "raping" the actress) before Taylor manages to help her out.

The following morning, the four of them, plus the two lovebirds who have remained stable and not attacked, manage to leave the house and drive away--into a world now covered by birds.

Nearly forty years after THE BIRDS first came out, it remains one of the most chilling and disturbing movies ever made. In contrast to the usual way, Hitchcock takes a very cold, clinical, unemotional approach to the characters and the dialogue, to de-emphasize the melodrama. For today's standards, this surely will not appeal to everyone, but there is a method to Hitch's madness here. The unemotional acting in the first half of the film is replaced in the second half by a style in which the characters appear to be still calm and low-key on the outside, but are on the inside scared senseless. And in contrast to the horror films of today, THE BIRDS ends on a note of very chilling ambiguity, in that the four lead characters have escaped more bird attacks...but probably only for the time being.

As is common in Hitchcock films, the suspense and tension are very palpable, particularly in the bird attacks. Despite the advancement of special effects in the ensuing forty years, I was still able to appreciate and accept the attention to detail in this film's effects work. Some of the birds are hand-drawn and animated; some of them are the real deal. Even the matte paintings aren't as fake looking as they seem. In this area, credit must go to Lawrence Hampton and Ub Iwerks, who were nominated for an Oscar in the special effects category, along with matte painting expert Albert Whitlock.

Though THE BIRDS is sometimes thought of as a science fiction film, no explanation, scientific or otherwise, is ever given for the birds' massive attacks. But the film's influence on subsequent thrillers is legendary. One cannot imagine films like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or STRAW DOGS, both of which feature houses besieged, not being influenced by the scenes here where Taylor's home comes under attack. And certainly there is the influence of THE BIRDS on some of Steven Spielberg's films, especially DUEL and JAWS.

The film comes with a 'PG-13' rating for thematic intensity and some brief graphic violence (including a shock cut of a farmer with his eyes cut out) that may be upsetting for those under thirteen years of age. For those who are willing to set aside the notion that this film is old-fashioned, and for those tired of seeing blood and gore splattered all over the screen for no reason other than exploitation, Hitchcock's THE BIRDS is definitely "top-flight" terror and suspense entertainment.