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Dead Birds - Effective horror movie

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Just finished watching Dead Birds. I believe it had an initial theatrical run that was so short almost no one saw it. Its been out on DVD for a few weeks.

Storyline wise it is a western style piece about a group of 6 who rob a bank and then hold up in a creepy house overnight.

Overall it was quite well made and has quite a neat little twisting and layered story. It also has a classic build, starting with a bang and then building up mood and tension towards a pretty active climax. Thankfully many of the scares are not telegraphed and choreographed like most modern horror (I'm looking at you Exorcist: The Beginning)

I could really see the director tackling an Alien movie in the future. He seems to have a nice sense of the gothic.

Put this movie alongside others like Below and Session 9 in the good films that no one cared to see department.
 

Wendo

Vasectomember
I bought Session 9 a couple of weeks back. I was rather disappointed that they didn't make use of their surroundings, and that there really wasn't anything "scary" about the film. The entire "listening to tapes of old sessions" concept didn't seem to mesh with the overall film, and just kind of felt tacked on.

That said, Dead Birds looks like it got medicore reviews. I'll check it out if I see it, if for nothing else to learn from its mistakes.
 
Session 9 could have been a lot better with a stronger pay-off. After watching the movie my brother's concept was to have the final voice on the tapes be the Foreman's. To do this you would have to, of course, have a different picture of the patient instead of the girl.

They say that the one of the treatments of the place was about finding hidden memories and when they closed the place down they let the people back out in society so it would have worked and made more sense.

As the movie was I think it would have benefitted from the inclusion of the subplot with the crazy lady.
 
hate to bump this 2 month old thread, but i just bought dead birds and watched it. it was average at best. slowwwwwwwwwwww story that never really develops into much of anything. low body count. blah. just like session 9, this is an overrated horror film. for shame!
 
D

Deleted member 4784

Unconfirmed Member
I recall seeing this movie when it first came out on DVD. The film was decent, but there were just too many inconsistencies for me to consider the film worth raving about. Such as,
we're lead to believe that the group "tranformed" into demons, but this doesn't explain why the black guy suddenly burst into a cloud of nothingness.
 
Thanks.

I'll try to rent this one.

As for Session 9, I love it. It was actually a lot more interesting on the second viewing as you could see the paralels being built via imagery and story. Sure it's not the "YAY! SUPERNATURAL ENDING!" crap a lot of folks were expecting. I just appreciate things that don't always have a happy end.
 
Waychel said:
I recall seeing this movie when it first came out on DVD. The film was decent, but there were just too many inconsistencies for me to consider the film worth raving about. Such as,
we're lead to believe that the group "tranformed" into demons, but this doesn't explain why the black guy suddenly burst into a cloud of nothingness.

All the people were slowly turning into demons as seen in the scene where the lead guy runs past the window and his reflection is all fucked up. The black guy was supposedly sent to the world of demons.

I don't think anyone can really say that the movie is overrated as hardly anyone has seen it. I think it was a cool little movie with some really effective scenes such as the peek under the bed sequence.
 
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