I’ve never seen a Alfred Hitchcock movie, which is mostly due to the natural fact that I’m a part of a different generation and also because I’ve never really bothered to seek out his famed “masterpieces”. But this was an error that needed to be remedied - and quickly too! - for you can’t fully appreciate the marvels of the modern world without having a certain understanding of how the foundation is built. Anyways, that’s what the quasi-philosopher inside my head keeps whispering, and I thought I’d give it a whirl to shut his mumbling-ass up.

Melanie Daniels is a rich society woman that is known for playing practical jokes. One day she meets Mitch Brenner, a defense-attorney, at a bird store in San Fransisco. Brenner outwits Melanie, thus forcing her to pay him back by showing up at his house with the pair of lovebirds that he had been trying to buy for his little sister’s birthday.

But the birds (in general) are acting very strangely indeed. They’ve started to randomly attack people by ganging up on them (maybe “flocking up on them” would be a better term) and scratching & hacking away. No explanation is given to why the birds have finally started fighting back, nor for why they always stop and leave at different intervals. I guess that the best way to describe this film is by saying that its more of mood piece than an actual movie with a plot and good characters.

In other words: Not really my cup of tea at all.

However, I did enjoy this movie to some extent. I thought the special effects were quite impressive for the time - especially the birds. The movie is actually meant to be horrific and scary, though it’s lost that flavour over the years; I’ve been fed scarier stuff than angry seagulls since I went to kindergarten.

In the end I found myself watching the movie just for nostalgia’s sake. Which is weird, ’cause I haven’t got any feelings towards these kind of movies. It was also quite funny to witness the cross-clipping that I presume was meant to be tension-building but came across as nothing more than a poor spoof. But it was worth the watch. Now at least no one can say that I haven’t seen any Hitchcock films.