Birds are not scary.
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Ray_BLOODY_Purchase — 10 years ago(January 24, 2016 07:23 PM)
I wouldn't accuse all youth of being so abysmally afflicted. It's just people with bad taste; I'm sure they existed when this film originally came out, just as they exist to-day. They just didn't have the internet around to show off their negative qualities and subpar breeding/upbringing.
It's me.Barait's always bloody Bara!
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ecarle — 10 years ago(January 19, 2016 06:52 AM)
OK I watched about 45 minutes of this in English lit
This part of the OP's post is interesting to me. Hitchcock was, in his time, a "commercial filmmaker" whose work wasn't taken very seriously by many critics or the Oscar Academy but now53 years laterThe Birds is shown as part of a academic "English lit" course. Perhaps as much to illuminate the short story by Daphne DuMaurier("Rebecca") as the film that Hitchcock made from it?
It is my belief that Hitchcock's films will likely live on from now on AS academic teachings. In film classes and English classes and drama classes. The Hollywood Heavyweight now joins Dickens and Melville for study
and the whole time I'm thinking this is no better than some ridiculous SyFy channel film with a ridiculous killer creature. How about the recent horror films with the killer sheep? Or mosquitoes? Seriously, this film is flawed to hell because of choosing birds as a threat.
Well, in choosing the material, Hitchcock was adamant that the birds in question be "innocent" birds. No birds of prey like owls(the resident killer bird in "Psycho.") No hawks. No ravens(though the crows LOOKED like ravens andwhat's the difference, anyway?)
Hitchcock delighted in giving his audiences a "newfound sense of menace in the everyday." You'd feel different about taking a shower once you saw Psycho. You'd feel different about a group of birds on a wire once you saw The Birds.
Also, keep in mind that Hitchcock's film came DECADES before all those Syfy movies and, in a certain way, inspired that ENTIRE CHANNEL. But with a much better cinematic flair(if, indeed, a flawed and slow script.)
Ok, maaaaaaybe if these birds were massive. Maaaaaaybe if they were all eagles or something. But just generic birds.
As noted above. Hitchcock WANTED generic birds to be the killers.
I don't care how many they are not that big of a threat.
Sure they are. The film "pulls its punches" on the attacks except for the one scene where the farmer is found with his eyes pecked out. That's how the birds kill in the main(Annie's eyes are pecked out, too but Mitch covers them with his hand to block Melanie's view.) Though the climactic attic room attack on Tippi Hedren shows us how a hundred beaks tearing into a victim's flesh could probably kill the victim via shock and blood loss("A death of a thousand cuts.")
If birds came flying at humanity in waves, by the thousands, by the MILLIONSno guns could stop them. No cannons could stop them. And though The Birds didn't have the budget to show this, birds attacking in waves by the thousands(millions?), could destroy all electrical towers, down airliners by clogging their jet turbines, poison water by filling reservoirs with dead birdsit wouldn't take long for nature to take back the world from humans.
All that said, no, perhaps the birds aren't scary AS birds. "The Birds" was the next film after "Psycho" from Hitchocck, and it made less than half OF "Psycho" and one reason cited at the time was that the knife-wielding shower-killing psycho of "Psycho" was far more terrifying thanbirds.
So I'll agree with you there. But The Birds isn't necessarily about shocks and terrorit is about the destruction of the world by a mass attack.
From unknowable sources. And for unknowable reasons. -
joystar5879 — 9 years ago(November 16, 2016 01:51 PM)
I first saw it at College, in a film class. (s). OP must be either very young, very luckyOR BOTH,
Gulls and Blue Jays, in particular, can be very territorial. Jays can be much nastier, because they tend to be in suburban areas. A Blue Jay will "Dive Bomb" you just for the sheer joy of it. (When I was a kid, we called them "Kamakaze Jays".) Gulls are less likely to go after a person, because their nests are not as accessible.
JS (who has a Blue Jay Gouge on her arm, from just LOOKING at a fallen nestling)
I do hope he won't upset Henry -
joe_538 — 9 years ago(September 03, 2016 09:19 AM)
I've seen more than one article about gulls attacking people. It seems like it would be scary enough to have one or two of those swooping at you, let alone a flock.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2352277/Postmen-refuse-deliver-seaside-road-risk-dive-bombed-seagulls.html -
Dobbsyisonfire — 9 years ago(June 17, 2016 05:31 AM)
It's scary because we are SURROUNDED by birds of all kinds. Hundreds of thousands, locally. They're not something we see as commonly "dangerous". The Sheer number and our comfort with them surrounding us every day, is what makes the thought of them turning on us frightening.
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mdonln — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 07:29 PM)
bbmcgee-39536 says > Before watching this movie, I didn't think a bird's brainpan was big enough to mount an attack. After watching this movie, I'm now convinced their brainpans are plenty big enough.
I avoided watching this movie for a long time because people have said it was really scary. I didn't think it was that bad but since I saw it the other day I've paid a lot more attention to the birds hanging around here; especially the big black crows with the huge, pointy and powerful beaks.
If one attacked it would be bad enough but most people probably could fight one off or get away from it. If large masses of them attacked all at once, like in the movie, it would be pretty horrifying. Young children and older people would probably be more vulnerable since they couldn't get away very quickly or fight back as well.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan.
[Tarzan and his mate] -
lm362 — 9 years ago(July 30, 2016 07:49 PM)
In the movie these birds clearly were a threat as they killed and injured many people. Your attention should have been on that aspect, not on what the threat to the people was. That is where the scariness comes from-the fact that something was harming and killing people.
"Do All Things For God's Glory"-1 Corinthians 10:31
I try doing this with my posts -
Jose_Accent_On_E — 9 years ago(August 11, 2016 05:52 PM)
Birds are not scary.
You wouldn't say this as my lovebirds' sharp beaks puncture your flesh, drawing blood and eventually consuming your tattered corpse.
OK, that least part is an exaggeration. Does anyone know why these avian assassins were given such a name? Was this a marketing campaign? After all, shouldn't a pet owner expect
love
from a lovebird, and not violence? -
equalthree — 9 years ago(August 18, 2016 04:31 AM)
The fact that you watched "about 45 minutes" of the film really says a lot. Try watching the complete movie and let us know what you think. Also, please note that the film was made in 1963 and so does not have all the bells and whistles of today's cgi.
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dazzmaniandevil — 9 years ago(October 24, 2016 11:21 AM)
Some 'generic' birds can be pretty intimidating. I've been on beaches when Herring gulls swoop down looking for scraps or just patrolling their turf, these are quite large birds and I've seen them rip pigeons apart with apparent glee. So were they to attack people with the same vigor I can see a nasty (and frightening) outcome as in 'The Birds'. I also think the sheer number of (even small generic) birds in this story hellbent on causing harm to humans adds to the fear factor. The idea of nature giving man some of his own medicine is an interesting one, especially considering what we are (still) doing to the planet.