MovieChat Forums > Dead Birds (2005) Discussion > Very disappointing

Very disappointing

posted 19 years ago by Gular-Scute
30 replies | jump to latest

This is one of those films that has a great premise but wastes it's potential almost immediately.I couldn't help but sit thinking of all that I would change about it. Helming a low budget ,B-movie is no excuse for being lazy, unimaginative and formulaic. The script is weak to begin with so it's hard to blame the actors for just drifting through their roles. I want to care about what happens to characters. Not because they're likeable, I feel the oppposite would have worked here. They should have been truly amoral, vicious, brutish men led by a charismatic sociopath anti hero with good lines. The dialogue is, at best banal and clunky. If a director has a script with weak dialogue which can't be rewritten perhaps the best course of action is to have it delivered in a mumbling, primitive fashion and kept minimalistic. Where is the backstory-apart from a brief dream/flashback-, where is the character development? The first wrong step is to have a (rubber) flayed man come charging out of a cornfield so early in the film and to have the characters react as if it's an everyday occurrence. We see the monsters too much, they should be held back, almost non existant, there by suggestion and briefly glimpsed in part only very occasionally. This would save money wasted on cheesey effects and perhaps pay for a decent director of photography. The lighting is too pin-sharp when it should be film noir gloomy and there are unlikely light sources throughout that detract from any sense of reality. Yeah, I know it's meant to be straight to video shlock but still, no excuse for mediocrity. Wrong Turn e.g. was of similar origins and still managed to hit a lot of right notes. Everything just looks too clean and bright. The director should have taken the actors out in their costumes each night before shooting, got them trashed then had them roll around in the mud. Banned them from washing and shaving, sprung unexpected shocks on them. Anything to give it all a rough and nasty edge. All of these weak elements are further dragged down by an incoherent plot. The American civil war lends itself well to horror, the fact of a nation in armed conflict with itself is dreadful enough. The rural, gothic southern states have all the right mystery and atmosphere. All that's wasted in Dead Birds.

[–] oroonocross 19 years ago

I think that you and I are the only two people that realize that the movie was not good.

[–] Gular-Scute 19 years ago

Heh heh, I liked your post about laughing your way through it quoting lines from films that some of the actors have appeared in. Maybe we should get together and redub it in this fashion, Dead Birds could be a comic masterpiece waiting to happen.

[–] maryappolinario 19 years ago

I'm with you honey...completly hated the movie..I first tought it was scary...nop...

[–] Marivi 19 years ago

Indeed! It's such a 'scary' film I fell asleep...peacefully :)

Hated it! Duh!

B)

[–] jmbwithcats 19 years ago

Firstly, try to use some punctuation next time. A line break here, paragraph end there, doesn't hurt anyone and makes a long drawn out post easier and more enjoyable to suffer through.

And though your points are valid enough I think you are being too critical. I mean you have nothing good to say about the movie at all as if you are pleased as punch to find a movie you can rip to shreds without remourse. I can't imagine what you said about Boogeyman, Cabin Fever, House of Dead, Saw, Darkness, and so many other movies that are 100x worse then this.

www.kittysafe.net May be goin to hell in a bucket baby but at least Im enjoyin the ride

[–] Gular-Scute 19 years ago

Sorry about the punctuation, It's definitely not my strong point. No-one forced you to read my post though, at least I hope not. I wouldn't advise anyone to go through something that caused them to "suffer" unless it paid great dividends.

On one level I was pleased to find such a movie. I usually find it hard to articulate what it is in a film that causes me dissatisfaction but with Dead Birds it seemed to be handed to me on a plate. I would really struggle to find something good to say about it I'm afraid. I've not seen any of the other films you mentioned but I get the impression anyway that most of them aren't worth watching. I was looking forward to seeing Saw though.

[–] mdavidsnyder 19 years ago

I just rented this tonight
I had great expectations for this film, having read a preview of it in Fangoria a few months back. I was very impressed with the demon images. I am one for gore and the initial violence in the robery with someone getting their head blown off was pumping me up. Too bad the rest of the film fell flat.
In all honesty I think the back story would've been a better film...
Just glad i didn't see this mess at a film fest!

"like a cactus tree, she's so busy being free" - Joni Mitchell

[–] fibermN 19 years ago

Very disappointing is right, it wasn't low keyed it was dull. I am sorry I rented it.

[–] redstar_002 19 years ago

If you were impressed by the head blowing up at the begining, then this movie wasn't for you to begin with. That was one of the only objectionable things about the film, even in the special features they said they left it in as a laugh.
Its not a slasher film, that's why they only hinted at the gore in the back story, but just enough to understand that it was gory. The rest was psychological with a very tangible twist. Thumbs way up for me.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] monkeysontoast 19 years ago

I rented this movie yesterday, along with "Dog Soldiers", because I had heard such good things about both movies. "Dog Soldiers" lived up to the hype IMO. I thought it was great. Dead Birds, however, was completely dissapointing. I couldn't believe how bad it was after seeing all the people over on the hororr board saying how much they enjoyed it. I even read somewhere it was one of th best horror movies to come out in recent years. Please...give me Wrong Turn or Cabin Fever over this movie ANYDAY. The premise was great...but it fell horribly flat...I blame it mostly on the script. Afterall, it DID have a great cast of actors supporting it.

A lot of wasted potential with this movie. I gave it a 5/10.

Horror Connoisseur
www.livejournal.com/community/hrrorcnnoisseur

[–] keirmartin 13 years ago

Coming to these boards got me excited for the movie but I was left completely underwhelmed. Simply because all of the characters sucked. I was rooting for William to die and the whole "I shot a kid" scene amounted to nothing. I thought he was going to redeem himself but he just turned into a giant douche.

The story wasn't all that either. The black magic stuff was meh and the twist wasn't really a headturner at all. This movie was predictable at times from the deaths, to Sam not being really dead to the lady getting shot.

The premise was great and I was really excited but overall I was completely uninvested in the movie. My main gripe is the characters were terrible. TOdd was the only character I warmed to at all but that was only because I felt he had the wisest decision and was the least "greedy" if you will.

I just hated William so much. Worst protaganist in a movie ever.

Granted i'll give it that. The monsters and demons were relatively well done.

[–] FangsFirst 19 years ago

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It's not my intention to be an argumentative pissant or anything, but I reeeeeeeally don't think your points are even remotely valid.
IF they were aiming for 70s exploitation ala Wrong Turn, then yes, hide the monsters constantly, have a cardboard cutout usual group of characters as you suggest and all that good fun, but...well, you're criticizing it for not being a movie it wasn't trying to be...

Perhaps it's just me but that hardly seems fair.

I mean, I don't think it's SUPPOSED to have a rought and nasty edge or dark and obscuring lighting or hidden creatures with sudden reveals (jesus, how tired is THAT crap?) or where everyone starts immediately assuming that something completely otherworldly is going on when they see one bizarre creature. Some people are too 'rational' to jump to such conclusions--and so the characters made their best attempt to explain it because they aren't aware they're in a horror movie.

incidentally: What backstory do we need exactly? We got a strong idea of where the most important characters came from. Annabelle was a military nurse, where she met Will as a wounded soldier. Sam's his younger brother, Todd's a former slave.
Where's the character development? It comes about in their reactions to each other and situations. Will is perceptive enough to know Clyde and Joseph are up to something.

Bah, well, this is pointless and will probably get a snarky reply, if any response at all.

forget it.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] lauren871 19 years ago

It is a great movie overall. I think as with anything it depends on your taste in movies. This movie has a good storyline, suspense and has wonderful graphics. I am planning on either renting the movie again (as I saw it about 4 or 5 months ago) or I might buy it. I hope you like it as much as I did. 9 out of 10! Enjoy!

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] Gular-Scute 17 years ago

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What it was meant to be isn't my concern FangsFirst, I was trying to think of ways to improve it by starting from scratch.

You are right to say that the 'hidden reveals and sudden appearances' routine is a well worn cliche but it still works in this sort of movie. However, I was suggesting there should be NO reveals, it would have made for a much better film. Revealing too much of the monster in horror films completely ruins any sense of mystique or suspense and as the monsters in DB were very poor it would have been better to keep the enemy as an unseen entity.

I suppose if the film had been more sophisticated and effective then it would have needed very little if any backstory, it's usually better to drop a few hints than to explain everything. With Dead Birds though I felt that the lack of any coherent history, suggested or otherwise, was due to laziness and lack of skill on the scriptwriter's part.

By 'character development' I didn't mean how the characters interact with their fellows and their environment. I meant that the characters were the same at the beginning as they were at the end - apart from being dead of course!. They didn't evolve over the course of the film, there were no revelations about them that surprised the viewer, no gradual release of information about them etc. They were mere cyphers.

I don't mean to be snarky by saying any of this by the way, I respect what you have to say and I'm just stating my view.

[–] teadm 19 years ago

The movie is somewhat disappointing. Great atmosphere and photography, slow but nice buildup to... I'm not sure what. What happens in the last 25 minutes or so of the film doesn't make much sense. Something's said about rituals, sacrifices to bring people back from the dead, but why are these people turning into these monsters?. Did they turn into demons?. Why were the kids dead?. Wasn't the mother the one who died and the husband tried to resurrect her?. It's a lot of mumbo jumbo that can't be fully explained and so what starts out as an interesting and sometimes gripping setup for a good horror story, ends up in a bunch of good, but unfulfilled ideas. Still I give it a passing grade of 6/10. For a similar (and possibly better) film see "Scarecrows" from 1988.

[–] Li-1 19 years ago

I also give it about 6 or 6.5/10. It's got great atmosphere, solid acting, some good freaky imagery, but not much of a sense of narrative drive as it just seems to wander from one scene to another. The lack of likeable characters works in the sense that everyone's impending fate feels inevitable, but having just about no one to root for makes the slow pace a bit tougher to slog through.

And as the poster above me indicated, it's kind of tough putting the pieces together to make sense of what happened to the plantation. Tobe Hooper's Toolbox Murders also suffered from that same flaw, but at least made up for it with sharp, fast-paced suspense and a very likeable lead.

Still, Dead Birds is about what I expected given what I'd heard about the film, and even though it's not as pleasant a gem of a straight-to-video horror flick as Dead End, it's still way better than the disappointing Boo.

[–] necronomicon80 19 years ago

If the whole story is too explained it leaves me with nothing to think about after seeing the movie. People are always complaining about these movies that don't offer "logical" explanations. I love for instance some of the films made by David Lynch. I must confess that I only seldom understand what is actually going on behind the surface, but I like them anyway.

Please don't get me wrong. I am by no means comparing this movie to the ones directed by mr. Lynch;) I somewhat enjoyed this movie anyway. I have some sort of a passion with these low-budget movies. Dog Soldiers was just something unbelievable IMO. I am waiting to get my hands on The Descent.

Still something was terribly wrong with this movie and it was disappointing. They tried to rely too much on these special effects, just like these big-budget hollywood horror movies, which only make you jump out of your seat occasionally and do not offer any suspense (remakes apart from The Ring, Boogeyman etc.) If a puppy all of asudden barks at me, I might jump from my seat, what does that have to do with horror?

"We see the monsters too much, they should be held back, almost non existant, there by suggestion and briefly glimpsed in part only very occasionally. This would save money wasted on cheesey effects and perhaps pay for a decent director of photography. The lighting is too pin-sharp when it should be film noir gloomy.." Couldn't agree with you more Gular-Scute!

[–] redstar_002 19 years ago

Wow, after seeing this movie a friend of mine recommended The Descent. Now I'm really intrigued.

[–] peewee_zz 19 years ago

I agree that the dark mysterious movie concept with less of the monster adds suspense, but film genres have branched for the good or for the bad. One thing is that "horror" movies with merely jump out at you effects is in essense it's own genre. You can have a movie with both which has been done well in a few recent movies but something like the Skeleton Key was just plain aweful.

I liked the original the Haunting and disliked the remake but had the film makers had the technology back then that they had today then they probobly would have always shown the monsters. Most horror directors think that Gore movies is truely horror when it's not. There's no suspense or even jumpiness in a gore movie. In the end the film is telling a story and how the movie arives at the ending does not have to be perfectly aligned with the "horror" genre. This idea created countless bad "horror" movies that just take up shelves in the movie rental stores.

I knew that I was watching a low budget horror movie that would probobly be predictable and have very bad and unlimited gore scenes. With that expectation in mind I was plesently suprised that they pulled off what they pulled of. From the standards of a timeless classic black and white horror film, dead birds was the worste thing to ever be filmed. From a cheesey predictable horror film I was pleseantly suprised. Plus that go to a coffee shop and talk to your friends for hours about the movie element was good. I think this film really spawned discussion intentional or not.

I guess another stand point that I view this film from is a D&D's pretty cool standpoint where movies about summoning daemons should always end in a berserker dwarf going psycho on a level 20 daemon. So from a unique view of devil worship this movie really had a draw.

"Arguing on the internet is like the special Olympics. Win or lose you're still retarded."

[–] Gular-Scute 17 years ago

I disagree that the director of The Haunting would have shown the monsters if he'd had today's technology at his disposal.

In one of his essays, Stephen King said something about how much more effective that film was for keeping the source of the haunting invisible. If the door had burst open and there had been a six foot bug on the other side it would have been gross but not as scary as not knowing what was there.

I reckon Robert Wise was savvy enough to know this. If he wanted to go down the 'reveal' route he would have had a man in a rubber suit banging on the door.

Does today's technology make films scarier? I would argue not; a misused piece of CGI looks just as bad as an iguana with a plastic horn glued to it's head.

[–] bpressey 17 years ago

"a misused piece of CGI looks just as bad as an iguana with a plastic horn glued to it's head."

I'm still laughing thinking of just about every alien/monster from the original Outer Limits tv show. Scary then, hilarious now.

[–] Gular-Scute 17 years ago

Heh heh! I always thought that the 80s or 90s incarnation of it was the original, I never knew that it had an older brother. I remember seeing the newer shows and wondering why anyone bothered to make it.

I was thinking of the cheapo dinosaur pictures where the budget wasn't big enough to include Ray Harryhausen. They usually had Doug Mclure in there somewhere.

[–] bpressey 17 years ago

Yea, if you've ever doubted that the late '50s and early '60s were a simpler/naive era you only need to check out the rubber monsters that used to scare the crap out of people.....ok, us. There, I said it. Talk about a low threshold of fright. If you ever get the chance to catch The Creature From the Black Lagoon, you'll see what I mean. The original B&W, of course.

[–] Gular-Scute 17 years ago

I saw that when the BBC had a long season showing the old Universal horrors back in the early 80s. It's quite an iconic suit but not pant-wettingly frightening these days as you rightly say.

Have you seen Dr Who? If not, it was renowned in the 60s and 70s for sending a generation of kids scuttling behind the sofa to hide. Even back then the wobbly sets, shoddy effects and bad rubber suits were cause for hilarity at times but it still had the power to terrify.

It's great to watch repeats of it now but I can't remember why it scared me witless, so much so that I once actually vomitted when one particular monster was melted. Sorry, probably too much detail there!

[–] SanForZeke 13 years ago

Just watched this movie.

It started out fine, though the characters were flat, at best, treacherous. The monsters worked fine when you didn't see them. Feels like there've just been so many movies with the classical "demon/hybrid" that was created due to ritual nr. 2924053240 that resulted in something bad.

Did manage to make a few predictions, as I usually do when I think a movie won't surprise me.

After making itself known to Annabelle, the "phantom" would start by going after the supporting casts. Mostly true, since as far as I could tell, William who was our main character, had no visions, while the others was either exposed to them, got a job as a scarecrow, pulled down in a well or just died.

Sam would be killed in the prescence of Annabelle only - true.

Todd would sacrifice himself to give main guy and main girl more time - false (I don't even remember if they showed what happend to him after he ran off, but clearly he wasn't intending to do the sacrifice part).

William and Annabelle would last the longest - true.
(though I didn't expect him to randomly fire at someone, but once he did, hmmm... whooooo could it have been... yeah, the chick.)

Clyde would go crazy and be killed by the others. Semi-false, I think. I barely paid attention at the end, so I don't recall if he were dead or not by the time he got his head kicked off.

Overall, not a movie I'll see again.
______________
"Enjoy destroying the world, sir." "Thank you, ma'am, I will."

[–] Indifferent_Observer 12 years ago

Just goes to show no matter how great a horror film is there will always be a bunch of people who don't like it. Even a low budget gem like this with an original story and a perfect cast.

Sad.

[–] jbaker1-2 12 years ago

'Dead Birds' may not be the best or most original horror film ever made, but at least it isn't yet another carbon copy slasher flick. That the OP didn't care for it, but apparently did like 'Wrong Turn', which is basically nothing more than 'The Hills Have Eyes' with a new coat of paint, I think tells us all we need to know about his qualifications as a film critic. <G>