Crappy film

As Good As It Gets

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

After committing a robbery at a local bank, and then deciding to head to Mexico, a group of thieves hold up in a deserted house for the night. After a huge storm rolls in, keeping them trapped for the night, each member of the group starts to experience horrific visions of unmentionable evil on what happened in the house years earlier. Before long, distrust starts to manifest through the group, causing them to slowly turn on each other. Time will tell if any of the group members can survive until the morning.Dead Birds wasn't actually that bad but it just lacked a certain something to make it that bit better. It's the scares in the film that carry it through to the end and while the story isn't that bad, it isn't really that original, so it's just as well that there is a good atmosphere and quite a few good few creepy moments throughout the movie to hold it up.One of the good ingredients for this movie is that it doesn't rely on gore to get the scares over. I mean, there is gore in the film, but it's not over-the-top and the film uses the psychological element more than anything to scare the audience.It's not a hugely fast-paced movie either and while the general pace of the movie isn't too bad, I think it still lacked a wee bit just to keep it ticking along as it did drag on a bit.Like I say, it just lacked that certain something to make it a little bit better, but still not too bad of an eerie horror.

Dead Birds is directed by Alex Turner and written by Simon Barrett. It stars Henry Thomas, Nicki Aycox, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Fugit, Michael Shannon, Mark Boone Junior, Harris Mann and Muse Watson. Music is scored by Peter Lopez and cinematography by Steve Yedlin.1863 and it's the back end of the American Civil War, a group of Confederate deserters rob their own army's gold being delivered to the bank of Fairhope. Leaving a bloody trail in their wake, the group set off for Mexico but must stop for rest and recuperation at a deserted farm mansion over looking a long dead plantation. With a storm moving in and tempers among the thieves running high, it soon becomes evident that something otherworldly resides at the house and the surrounding area…Dead Birds is a little cracker, a straight to video horror film that to my mind puts to shame some of the big budgeted piles of crap that get released to the multiplexes on a seemingly weekly basis. Of course, horror is very subjective, where along with comedy it forms a pair of genres guaranteed to produce films that will never ever please everyone. Falling into the haunted house sub-genre of horror, Dead Birds, in spite of its unique Civil War period setting, has been lambasted by many a horror fan for not being fresh, that it's a collage of other horror movies. There's some truth to that, but we could level that charge at 98% of horror movies anyway! But Dead Birds (crap title btw) does have a cult fan base, a fan base I'm very much proud to be part of.Alex Turner, for his first feature length debut, has crafted a haunted house picture that positively pulses with dread, with its slow deliberate pacing and hushed conversational tones, the atmosphere crackles with unease. The opening credits are jet black and rise from the earth like spectral portents of death. Then after the fireworks of the robbery, things settle into a sort of ethereal rhythm. The gang make their way to their doom through a murky landscape until they reach what they don't know is their final destination; the plantation, a place that just reeks of death and disharmony.The cornfield is long dead and home to a strange creature, the battered old scarecrow looks ripe for a fright and a dead bird on the floor is ominous. The house itself is a two story wooden type not used often in tales of this type. It looks moody, as does the servants quarters, there's also a creepy barn with its hayloft and a water well of course. These are genre staples for sure, but Turner gathers all the clichés and gives them a new lease of life in a new period setting. The secret is in the lighting, Turner and Yedlin (Brick/Looper) light from down low, giving off a wonderful eerie effect as the gang trudge around this place of misery. It may sound like an oxy-moronic statement, but this is one beautifully shot horror film.Then there's the shocks, the boo-jump moments (sadly revealed in the trailer for those unfortunate to not see the film first), these are not frequent so as to make the film reliant on them, they are used sparingly and only to advance the plot as the plantation's history literally comes to life. The cast are on fine form (Thomas and Washington standing out), working well with a dynamic infused with greed, mistrust, jealousy and racism. Lopez's musical score blends foreboding rumbles with spine chilling shards of noise, while Turner slots in some oblique angles to further enhance the feeling of hopeless disorientation. It may cover familiar ground, that of a bunch of folk in a spooky house being bumped off one by one, with suspicions aroused, but Dead Birds is very much its own animal. Hee, literally. 8/10

This has such a basic plot that I'll knock it off straight away so I can spend more time on why this sucks.After some rogue soldiers from the 1800s (1863 so we're told), rob and slaughter some Southern soldiers depositing some cizzash in the local bank. This is the best scene in the movie, although unfortunately it really has next to nothing to do with the rest of the film and takes only 5 minutes. It is quite violent and has a couple of good gory effects.The best part of the 1800s? Crazy facial hair, it seems most of the extras in the town were chosen based upon the length and complexity of their face fuzz, after this scene though none of the primary characters rock much more than carefully trimmed stubble.Right, so the bad guys, 5 guys and one babe go on the run to Mexico, only night falls and they decide to stop off at an abandoned house on the edge of a cornfield. As they are coming to the edge of the cornfield something happens that I still don't really get, they are rushed by a… thing, and one of the guys uses lightning reflexes to blow it away.(Best as I can explain it looks like a smaller version of the Alien : Ripley baby from Alien Resurrection.) The rest of the movie is set over the ensuing night in the old house, and it is so horror cliché that I won't bother explaining it.After this finished I thought that it was an 1800s poor man's version of Event Horizon, a crew are trapped in a confined space, and the scariness that ensues sorta makes them turn on each other.Now a couple days later I think it is more like an alternate version of The Descent, where the first half is an unsettling caving trip gone wrong, but the second half is almost totally different, like a monster movie. Only the first half of Dead Birds is ordinary and the second half totally blows.When you finally learn what the hell just happened it does make sense in a nonsensical way, but you won't care because it is so poorly executed.I thought everything and everyone looked a little too clean in the opening town scene, you know, a clean neck and some strategic streaks of dirt on one cheek. That was a concern, if the filmmaker decides not to bother with an authentic look, maybe they'll be lazy in building suspense and delivering shocks, and let boring horror movie clichés do all the work for them, and they're all here; - A Flashback/Delusion/Dream, call it what you will, is the scariest part of the movie.People jump at shadows and all scares are comprised of something jumping towards camera accompanied by a loud music stab.Someone is missing, let's spread out and look.It is now maybe two nights since I watched Dead Birds, usually I have some scrawled notes with maybe a half page of points and reminders, and I let my memory do the rest, in this case I already can't remember the last two thirds of the film.Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. It's just not that good.If you liked this (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

During the U.S. Civil War, a gang of six crooks would rather rob banks than defend the Confederacy. They are: handsome leader Henry Thomas (as William), sensitive brother Patrick Fugit (as Sam), pretty nurse Nicki Aycox (as Annabelle), greedy racist Michael Shannon (as Clyde), scruffy boozer Mark Boone Junior (as Joseph), and sensible ex-slave Isaiah Washington (as Todd). You can expect some conflict between Mr. Shannon and Mr. Washington, of course. Also, Mr. Fugit nicely plays some desire for Ms. Aycox, who is otherwise occupied with Mr. Thomas.The Alabama Civil War setting starts the picture off interestingly, with a blood-splattering western-style shoot-out. After this, it becomes a very different, haunted house horror tale. The story might have worked better if it had been set in the present, making the plantation owner and his family more distinct. Then, "Belle" would be Aycox' ancestor, and so on… We only see one of the "Dead Birds" referred to in the title. Fugit steps on it as the gang of six enter the old dark house - and, watch how it makes his face twitch! The figurative title "Dead Ducks" applies more. Considering the film's intents and purposes, writer Simon Barrett delivers more than delivers the goods, new director Alex Turner and photographer Steve Yedlin give it the creeps, and Peter Lopez' spooky musical score mixes nicely with the atmospheric sound. With a short shooting schedule, and limited budget, the cast and crew make "Dead Birds" fly, if not soar.****** Dead Birds (9/13/04) Alex Turner ~ Henry Thomas, Patrick Fugit, Nicki Aycox, Michael Shannon