31 Days of Horror Movies - The Birds (1963)

There we were...we had just been stationed a Langley AFB, Virginia.  We took a trip during the off-season to Virginia Beach.  Of all the beaches we've been to, this one actually had a McDonald's on the beach.  We got an order of fries and went outside.  Big mistake!  We usually ate our fries fairly quickly, but not as quickly as on this day.  As soon as we got back to the beach, we were surrounded by rats with wings, otherwise known as seagulls.  Not only were we surrounded by them, they hovered in our faces.  Yes, they wanted our fries.  We quickly obliged them and threw our remnants in another direction in order to make our escape.  They weren't threatening us in any way, but it was kind of unnerving to be less than a yard away from having a bird land on your face.  Unnerved yes, but we weren't nearly as unnerved as Tippi Hedren was in The Birds (1963).

My mom loved Alfred Hitchcock movies.  She loved Vincent Price movies.  I guess you could say she was my gateway to horror movies.  The only thing she wouldn't let me watch was The Exorcist (1973).  So when I first saw The Birds, it was with her.  There are no individual Whoa! Moments in this movie because the whole movie was one big Whoa! Moment.  They attacked school kids.  They attacked diners coming out of a restaurant.  They pecked a farmer's eyes out.  They attacked a guy at a gas station while he was filling his car.  This killed a guy nearby who was smoking.  The dude who was attacked at the gas station spilled a bunch, and the poor smoker didn't know he was standing in the stuff.  Birds came down and out of chimneys.  They caused traffic accidents.  The cause of all these bird attacks in Bodega Bay, California is unknown.  The reason they stopped attacking is also unknown.  When they've done their damage and Tippi Hedren leaves town, many birds are sitting on power lines all over town.  It's as if they're sending a message - be careful or we'll do it again.

Joe Bob Briggs score - 4 dead bodies, no naked breasts, gas station-fu, phone booth-fu, and one drunk who thinks The Apocalypse is upon them.

All I know is this - every time I see a lot of birds in one place, I think of this movie.  And this is more than 40 years after I first saw it.