Load of rubbish!!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I've just watched THE BIRDS on Blu-ray for the first time and ended up loving it more than ever. I can now safely say that this is an excellent Hitchcock film, perhaps not one of his very best, but certainly up there among them. It comes second only to JAWS as my favourite animal attack film, and is expertly made. The whole first hour takes time to get to know the characters and feels much like a Doris Day-style romantic comedy (helped by Rod Taylor's presence) before Hitchcock lets rip with the full-blooded horror in the second half.Some might complain that the first hour is a little slow, but when the direction's this good I didn't mind at all. Still, once the birds DO attack, things really hot up. The shock scenes do just that - the bit with the chimney is an example of a good, solid cinematic moment. The attack on the children's party is another. Characters hole up in a bar, and things remain just fine until the end. Hitchcock choreographs an excellent 'out of control' set-piece as the town is destroyed, full of flames and broken glass and chaos. We get a mini siege scenario at the end, no doubt inspiring the likes of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and all that's come since. The special effects are still pretty good to this day and Hitchcock doesn't skimp on the sadism in the bloody attacks, either. This might well be one of the first of the Hollywood FX blockbusters.The cast is very good too. Taylor is as perfect as the everyman hero as he was in THE TIME MACHINE. Jessica Tandy is excellent, playing a very irritating character and giving her some warmth and life despite her bad points. Veronica Cartwright is convincingly menaced, just as she was years later in ALIEN and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. I didn't care much for Tippi Hedren's cold character the first couple of times I saw this, but her presence has subsequently grown on me in the intervening years.

One of the masterpieces of the brilliant director Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock has succeeded in making one of the creatures that are innocent into ferocious beings. The film talks about a coastal city in San Francisco being attacked by swarms of birds for no apparent reason. The film begins with a romantic character, with Tippi Hedren linking with Rod Taylor and Suzanne Pleshette in a triple love story. Melanie meets Mitch at a bird shop where she makes a joke that led her to the Mitch family's home in the coastal city north of San Francisco to deliver gifts of love. Then the film begins to gradually escalate, starting with the bird that attacked Melanie on her head to attack the birds for a children's party to quickly climb up to bloody attackers and the scene of the viewer in a state of panic and concern about the characters after being attached to them. The cause of these attacks may not seem obvious but the bloody and frightening attacks, as well as the sound and visual effects, have raised fear and shock in the heart of the scenes, and this is certainly what Director Alfred Hitchcock wanted. Despite writing a closing scene, I left the end open until interpreted by the viewer as much as he wanted. In addition to the cause of bird frenzy, which remains a question mark to this day, the film has become one of the most exciting films and mystery. The Birds is Hitchcock's last best work (and hopefully not).

I cant say much about The Birds (1963) because everyone knows why its so good, everyone knows why its so effective, well written and well directed. Its just a classic horror film that manages to be scary and creepy despite its absurd premise.I believe this is one the movies that inspired all those killer animals films, but this one is one of the better ones in that genre. Probably because most of those other films lack the kind of writing that this one has, they don't develop their characters well enough so by the time something happens to them you really don't care, in The Birds you do care and you root for these people even if they aren't the most likable people on earth. Also, the bird attacks in the film are really well directed, another aspect those movies lacked.

Having just screened the movie I feel the need to warn future viewers that it is 2:21:54 long not 120 minutes! I see the movie listed everywhere citing 119 or 120 minutes but I just ran it... 2:22 from the trolley car to the end credit.My audience was my wife and 20 y.o. son neither of which had ever seen it. Both were appropriately uneasy during the movie and both felt unsettled when it was over. Score: Hitchcock 1, Time 0