The Birds

1963

Alfred Hitchcock was considered one of the great scary movie directors, but luckily we live in the “age of the Internet” so we also know that Hitchcock was a generally creepy dude, which makes his movies even more terrifying. He was obsessed with his leading ladies. He spent days on scenes that were less that a minute long. He was so calculated, that he knew exactly what the movie would look like before they even started shooting. The amount of attention to detail rivals only that of maybe research scientists and definitely serial killers.

If you’ve never seen The Birds, I assume you still have some sort of pop culture reference to it. If you don’t even have that, then I can’t help you. However, for those who need a refresher, I’ll offer one. Tippi Hedren is a beautiful blonde named Melanie living in San Francisco. Melanie seems pleasant enough…until you realize she is a stalker, manipulator, and pathological liar. Enter the love interest, Mitch, He knows Melanie by reputation, which makes her seem like a call girl, but really she is just a rich socialite with too much time and too many friends on her hands. She is, by every definition of the word, a brat. They meet in a pet store while Melanie is looking for a bird that will say curse words to her friend and Mitch is looking for birds for his little sister’s birthday.

Melanie is intrigued by this man who knows her, but she doesn’t know him, as any bored rich girl would be. So she tracks down his license plate (through Daddy’s connections) and finds out his home address, which subsequently leads her to his weekend home in a place called Bodega Bay. Mitch needs to get less trusting neighbors or gay ones, because men are more than willing to offer Melanie any information she wants on Mitch’s residence and home life. Even the local school teacher gives Melanie everything she needs to concoct a lovely lie to get into his house. She’s just blonde, not Jesus!

Melanie brings Mitch’s sister a pair of lovebirds. Mitch catches Melanie sneaking into his house to drop off her gift with no ulterior motive, and chases her into town. That’s when Melanie is attacked by a gull. But this is The Birds not The Bird, so you know more possessed evil is coming from the skies. But when? That’s how Hitchcock drags you in to his movies. He offers you JUST a taste, then makes you wait around for 35 minutes of exposition and beautiful crafted camera angles before scaring the crap out of you again.

Now it’s Mitch’s turn to be intrigued by this little blonde psycho who followed him to his hometown. He brings her home to his mother who immediately disapproves, because let’s be honest, Melanie is like the least redeeming character in horror films. I’m more sympathetic to the blonde teenage camp counselor who wears only bras after sundown. Before Melanie can get a chance to show Mitch’s mother they aren’t in some Oedipal play, the town begins to be attacked by more and more birds.

It gets gruesome and then really, really LOUD at parts. Which is more psychologically terrifying than the scenes themselves. Doesn’t matter how slow or fast or how many or few, wings flapping is worse to me than whistling. In fact, if some of those birds started whistling while flying I probably would have walked out of the movie theater (*side note, I saw this on the big screen).

One smart woman accuses Melanie of bringing this evil on the town. But then she starts getting hysterical and Melanie has to slap her, which sends the woman’s credibility out the window. No one in town can figure out what is going on, because I assume Bodega Bay is made up of 68% fishermen, 20% drunks, and 12% children. None of who are experts on birds. And the one woman who actually IS an expert on birds, just wants to be a know-it-all and won’t listen to anyone.

The movie ends with Melanie getting attacked by a roomful of birds, but then saved by Mitch and his mother-wife. Then they all hop (well, more like skulk) into Melanie’s Aston Martin and head out of the now deserted town, leaving flocks of birds to now finally poop in peace. But not before Mitch’s sister brings the pair of lovebirds with them. This girl needs a lesson in “correlation equaling causation.”