'Birdemic: Shock and Terror': Our new, crazy movie obsession

Some movie trailers make you go, “Wow!” Some make you go, “Urgh!” And some make you go, “Wait, what’s going on? This is just a lot of generic silent footage of the countryside. And more generic silent footage of a beach. And yet more generic footage of a town. But, wait! Now the whole screen is full of unexplained explosions and screeching, cheaply animated, birds! I don’t understand. I… DON’T… UNDERSTAND!”

Okay, so only one trailer makes you do that. And that is the trailer for Birdemic: Shock and Terror, the film which answers the question of what Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds would have looked like if it had been made not by Hollywood’s legendary Master of Suspense, but by a mid-level Silicon Valley software salesman.

The salesman in question is James Nguyen, who not only financed BSAT (as subsequent generations will doubtless refer to it) but also wrote, directed, and produced the four-years-in-the-making movie about a couple who are besieged by homicidal birds in a small North California town. That’s right, Nguyen spent four years on Birdemic. Which is pretty much the same amount of time James Cameron took to make Avatar! But was Birdemic shown the love upon its completion? It was not. In fact, last year those morons at Sundance rejected the movie — a decision they may have regretted when Nguyen spent eight days driving around Park City in a fake bird-covered van blasting the sound of eagle attacks and human screams from loudspeakers.

The cult movie grapevine has been buzzing about Birdemic for a while. But yesterday DVD distributors Severin Films put out a formal video announcement that they had acquired the worldwide rights. “Birdemic is truly unlike any other film we’ve seen,” Severin CEO Carl Daft diplomatically announced in a press release. The company is planning a theatrical release for later this year.

I can’t wait. No, literally, I cannot wait. So, I called Severin Films and made them promise to send me a screener asap. They’re also going to put me in touch with Mr Nguyen. One can only imagine what tales he has to tell and/or reasonably-priced software he has to sell. Anyhoo, more details to come.

But, for now, I will leave you with that trailer.

Yes, never mind the Oscar ballots. Here’s Birdemic: Shock and Terror.