Birdemic is a horror movie so bad that someone passing by the theater could easily mistake it for a comedy, based on the roars of laughter.
The best part of this horrible movie is that the creator, James Nguyen, tried submitting the film to Sundance. After being rejected, he pasted fake birds and carnage to his car and drove around the festival to promote the film.
In the movie, Rod, played by Alan Bagh, is a salesman who runs into an old classmate, Nathalie, played by Whitney Moore. The two hit it off and go on a few dates, which are extremely dull and matched only by the worst acting I have ever witnessed. Average-looking Nathalie is a model who has just signed with Victoria’s Secret, just one of many completely unrealistic elements of the plot.
At the end of one of Rod and Nathalie’s dull dates, they end up at a cheap motel, and that’s when the birds first appear. At this point, the graphics get truly terrible. The computer-generated eagles are simply making noise outside the motel room as terror strikes the couple.
Rod and Nathalie decide that instead of just taking their own car home, they must team up with Ramsey and Becky, another couple they run into at the motel. They decide to take the other couple’s van, which is conveniently stocked with powerful weapons. The two couples then take the amazingly equipped van and aimlessly shoot at the “killer birds” everywhere they go, occasionally picking up a passenger or two.
All in all, this movie is almost so bad that it’s good. The film begins as a boring romantic flick and then jumps into a poorly made knock-off of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” But the bad plot is just the beginning.
As far as acting goes, Bagh reads through his lines completely emotionless, while Moore tries to conjure up some real pathos but fails.
The sound awkwardly cuts in and out, and the computer-generated eagle villains make the terror aspect of the film laughable.
Despite the extremely low-budget attempt at special effects, the film might actually generate an interesting following. It had the audience laughing non-stop, starting with the opening credits. So although the intention was to make a horror movie, Nguyen might have inadvertently produced the next great cult film.
