Hey, this movie stars Trucky, Bad Bitty, Dirty D, Lacy, JB, Biggie Shorty, and Robert Vaughn.
…well, ok, only Robert Vaughn.
Killing Birds starts off with the harrowing tale of a Vietnam vet returning home to find his wife in bed with another man, causing him to go on a murderous rampage throughout the house until only his baby son is left Just then, a falcon tears out one of his eyes and blinds his other one. There’s bloodshed, there’s screaming, there’s eye trauma that would make Lucio Fulci stand up and applaud in the audience. And then the movie becomes an after school special.
I tell you, what could be more compelling than following up a bunch of psycho murders with college kids talking about a potentially extinct woodpecker in Louisiana to the tune of elevator music? If you said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, then you have a lot in common with the tag team of producers and directors Joe D’Amato and Claudio Lattanzi. Because that is exactly what you get for the next 45 minutes: college students looking for woodpeckers in the backwoods of Louisiana and stumbling upon an abandoned house, which they then decide to spend the night in because, well, they’re just the kind of kids that go to LSU.
Anyway, after about an hour into this movie, finally zombies show up and kill people. Only they’re like ghosts and not zombies because they kind of just appear busting through stuff to take folks from behind or from above, but then they vanish and nobody really gets too good of a look at them or really tries to fight back effectively because they’re all like super strong or something. I don’t know the rules on these things. The important thing is that they shamble and are dead, which I suppose is enough to get them a “Me Too” label attached so folks who liked John Romero and Lucio Fulci will bother to watch this one. Hey, what can I say, it’s a loose series.
Eventually the zombies vanish and then Robert Vaughn pops up and says they only go after people who show fear, just like wasps. So…zombie humanoid ghost wasps. I guess folks thought that was too long a title so they went with Killing Birds instead, despite birds not causing the deaths of anyone in this movie at all. I think this is a mistake, because I totally would have put money down to see Zombie 5: Killing Zombie Humanoid Ghost Wasps. Wouldn’t you? Hell, you know you have a problem when the freaking poster is more graphic than your movie!
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I think this movie is pretty bad. In the pantheon of films bearing the name Zombi that I have seen, this is definitely the worst, though I feel I ought to add an addendum that says I haven’t gotten to watch Zombie 4: After Death yet. Still, judging by the trailer, After Death looks a lot better than Killing Birds does. The biggest flaw with Zombie 5: Killing Birds is that it’s boring, though its close second and third are that the characters are dumb and the actors are mostly terrible…with the exception of Robert Vaughn. Come on, it’s Robert Vaughn!
Sine Yo Pitty on the Runny Kine!
I really gotta stop making references to Pooty Tang.
Movie Reviews by a Mook 