Now how could I have a Halloween movie-cation without a film by the Master of Suspense?
Based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier, The Birds is Hitchcock’s first film after Psycho (1960). In the small, Northern California town of Bodega Bay, a mysterious force causes birds to be unusually violent towards humans.
The first attack doesn’t happen until 25 minutes until the movie, but the setup is absolutely amazing. Wealthy socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) meets a self-righteous lawyer, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), in a bird shop in San Francisco. He casually mentions wanting to buy lovebirds for his kid-sister’s birthday, but leaves when the store doesn’t have any. Melanie uses the power of her thirst to track him down to the small town of Bodega Bay and flirtatiously breaks into Mitch’s house to plant the lovebirds.
My reaction exactly. And who wouldn’t do that for Rod Taylor? P.S. He’s Australian.
But since Melanie Daniels is basically the 1963 equivalent of Paris Hilton, repeatedly mentioned in the tabloids for her less-than-ladylike antics, Mitch’s mother does NOT approve.
Which makes Melanie even thirstier, to be honest.
Anyway, Mitch convinces Melanie to come to his sister Cathy’s birthday the next day, where the real horror begins.
A group of seagulls violently attack the children, and things only escalate from there. For some reason the town is super unwilling to believe that the birds are working in groups to attack humans, even after a third attack leaves a man dead with his eyes totally pecked out, and a fourth attack takes place at the elementary school.
This is probably the best scene. One, because crows are scary as hell, and two, because the special effects make it so that you are forced to watch a bunch of child actors cry while fending off what appear to be artificial crows.
The action subsides in probably what is the most boring scene in the film, where Melanie, Mitch, and several townspeople including an ornithologist debate the validity of the “attacks.” After maybe ten minutes of discussion, the biggest and most violent attack takes place.
There are explosions, there’s death, there’s Tippi Hedren in a phone booth. What’s so great about this scene is that we get the vantage point of someone who is safe yet right in the middle of the action. Melanie hides in the nearest phone booth as she is forced to watch people die all around her.
It’s very gruesome. She can’t even look away! It’s all around her.
But this isn’t even the climax. Melanie, along with Mitch and his sister and mother, hide out in Mitch’s house for one last final attack. There’s so much suspense in knowing that the birds are going to attack but not knowing when. My heart raced the entire last 20 minutes or so.
Also Melanie and Mitch do that fun thing where two straight white people hate each other yet they fall in love due to some kind of trauma involving animal attacks. You know? 52 years before Jurassic World came out?
She can’t mean that! He’s a man and she’s a woman! They’ll fall in love, just you wait.
But joking aside, the movie is awesome. The one thing that left me creeped out was learning that Hitchcock developed an obsession with Tippi Hedren where he essentially ruined her career after she rejected his advances. They would only make one other movie together, Marine (1964), and after that she didn’t work for years because he refused to let her out of her contract. Sad stuff.
The Birds was nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and currently has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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