Birds of Prey (1987)

This hilariously bad Spanish ripoff of "The Birds" is perfectly enjoyable entertainment. Much of "El ataque de los pájaros" ("Beaks: The Movie" in English) is slo-mo shots of people getting attacked or running or screaming. René Cardona Jr. apparently directed a lot of exploitation movies, and this one has all the elements that make one an exploitation movie: violence, bad acting, and some nudity. But like I said, it's a pretty fun movie, provided that you accept it as a total B movie (or maybe C movie). They probably had fun filming it. As for what Alfred Hitchcock's opinion would've been had he been alive when it got released, I figure that he would've either been offended that they ripped off his movie, or he would've laughed at how hilariously bad the result was.

"Alfred Hitchcock's classic film … but with loads & loads of additional gore" … See, even the text on the old VHS box warned me that watching "Evil Birds" would be a complete waste of time, and still I didn't listen! There's gore, all right, but this also happens to be one of the most retarded movies I've ever seen in my life. We all know Hichcock and his films were (and still are) imitated and copied endlessly, but this is undoubtedly the most shameless and blatant rip-off of his repertoire ever! The story lines are identical, only the elaboration here is hopelessly inane with miserable dubbing, pitiable dialogs, atrocious acting performances (cursed be that gay boy from "The Blue Lagoon") and lousily cheap and unconvincing make up effects. Since there isn't the slightest bit of suspense or atmosphere to experience, "Evil Birds" is unspeakably boring and thus doesn't even qualify as 'entertainingly awful'. The bird attacks are wannabe engrossing, but it simply isn't very petrifying to see a pigeon/dove/chicken approach the camera bit by bit. I guess it requires a talented filmmaker in the league of Hitchcock to make even the most nonthreatening little animal look threatening. Writer/director René Cordona Jr. is getting dangerously close to becoming my personal choice of worst director of all time. This is the fifth major disappointment in a row I see of him (after "Cyclone", "Night of a 1.000 Cats", "The Bermuda Triangle" and "Tintorera!") and easily the most embarrassing of them all. So far, I only enjoyed his jungle adventure knock-off "Treasure of the Amazon".

These include:1.) Bad dubbing and phonetically challenged foreign actors.2.) A TV news story entitled "Attack of the Killer Chickens!"3.) Close-ups of birds pecking faces apart and pulling out eyeballs, leaving only blood-squirting empty black sockets.4.) Gratuitous slow-mo flying and attack scenes.5.) A dense globe-trotting blonde couple who take time out from the carnage for a PG-rated bubblebath/champagne kissy kissy session.6.) Snappy dialogue reducing a worldwide epidemic of bird attacks to "feathered mutiny."7.) An annoying little brat who runs outside during the middle of a bird ambush just to get her greedy little hands on a party horn...leading to several unnecessary deaths.8.) Christopher Atkins talking to his penis.In case you haven't caught on, this is a low-grade rip off of the 1963 classic which cuts back and forth, from different countries to different people running away from someone offscreen throwing pigeons at them. American actors Michelle Johnson and Atkins are in the main segment about TV reporters who travel around investigating various attacks only to get ravaged on a train, but the story also covers a bickering couple, their two kids and a girl in a bikini attacked at a beach and people at a children's birthday party (there's even a little Veronica Cartwright knock-off named Cathy!).This film was also released as BIRDS OF PREY and was an international production that was filmed in Spain, Peru, Italy, Mexico, Morocco and Puerto Rico!Score: 3 out of 10 (for scattered laughs)

I admit, I've never seen "The Birds". I read a children's story version of it in third grade (from the school library) and enjoyed it very much. I really hope that the Hitchcock film does not revolve around pigeons. I have handled them and know are very very harmless. The slow motions shots in "Beaks" look great, but I know all a pigeon could do is bounce off of somebody. I'm concerned that lots of pigeons died making the film and that makes the ecological message look hypocritical.An army of ants could scare me, but not pigeons or the canary in one scene. I only enjoyed the gore close-ups of pecked writhing bodies. They were pretty well done. A silly and boring film, though I would like to see "Night of the Thousand Cats".