1963. Hitchcock. The Birds. Really, that is all one needs
to write. Anyone who has seen it knows
how powerful a film it is. Anyone who
hasn’t seen it has avoided it simply because they are afraid. It is a scary, scary film, and that’s
something sorely missing from today’s theatres.
That fear doesn’t come from a masked, unstoppable killing machine; a
puppet on a tricycle; or even a ghost in a television. It comes from nature, it seems to have thought
behind it, and it comes without warning.
That’s what makes it terrifying.
Tippi Hedren plays the lead female, Melanie. While visiting Bodega Bay, California she is
attacked by a seagull and it is all downhill from there. Soon hundreds of birds of all sorts are
attacking people in the town.
Attacking. Stopping. Attacking again. Without reason. Without a pattern. It is nerve destroying and Hitchcock knows
it.
Yes, the special effects aren’t special to modern
audiences. You kind of forget that,
though, while you experience it. The
film is just that engrossing. Watching
it, you understand why the director was a master of his craft, and you hate him
for it. How many people left the theatre
after seeing this and felt their pulse race at the sight of a crow?
I can watch Psycho
with no problem. The movie doesn’t freak
me out in the slightest. This film,
however, does the job. Nature gone wild
with no explanation (horror without an explanation is some of the most jarring
horror of all). Paranoid townspeople who
manifest reasons for the attacks in what amounts to little more than symbolic
magic. Tension increased by actions and
not a film score. Hitchcock’s work of
art has it all, and it is relentless.
Yes, he takes time building the story, but that’s what makes the film
work. It is not for the easily
distracted.
There have been other attempts to capture the magic that is The Birds. I can’t think of any movie that really
succeeded in doing it, however.
Hitchcock created a classic here, and it is one that I think is his best
film. I know purists would disagree with
me, but nothing else he has done put me on the edge of my seat like this one
did. This is simply a masterpiece in all
the right ways.
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