The Birds II: Land's End 1997 Horror Movie Review

It figures. Something like this was bound to happen to me. After viewing all the reveiws off amazon, I was just a bit curious of The Birds II. It sounded exciting, but compared to everyone else’s opinion, I seriously didn’t think much of it. Somehow I predicted once I bought it, I would make a regret, but no. I actually liked it. To tell the truth, I make no regrets about buying it. I loved it, which is the problem. In B low-grade movies everyone else despises, I end up to be the one who breaks that chain. That’s me of course. I suggest this movie to anyone who likes sequels to good movies. Not as good as the original, but good.


Ted and May Hocken (Brad Johnson, and Chelsea Field) and their daughters just want to get away from the normal world. Can you blame them after losing their son 5 years before? In the hopes of escaping their problems, they embark to Lands End, the part of small Gull island where the earth becomes water. It seems a quiet and boring start to what may seem like a nice summer. But things soon change. Unusual amounts of birds have been flocking around Lands End, and a few other small towns around the island. Birds people never even knew hung around the island. The Birds begin to do strange things. Ted is hit by a bird while doing a little painting, his daughters find a body with it’s eyes pecked out, and a strange crow crashes through a window of their house. As this is happening, the birds began to mass in bigger groups, and once all hell breaks loose, there is no stopping them.


I have to agree that sequels do in fact need an ending. This should not have been called a sequel, but more of a follow up of the orginal masterpiece. Why bother making a sequel when there is no point. Just another part in the timeline. Maybe that’s why the director went with “Alan Smithee”. If he was that embarrased with the movie, why did he make it? I’m glad he did though, cause at least I liked it.


There are some pretty amazing shots in the movie with the birds including the fact that in most of the attack scenes except for the huge attack at the end, they used real birds. Some of the things they got the birds to do in this one were pretty amazing that they couldn’t do in the orginal, for example, when the the Hockin family uses a boat to try and escape Gull Island, and when they go to hide underneath it, the birds begin to peck at the bottom of the boat, chewing holes in it. They actually showed the birds on top pecking right through. I thought that was pretty cool, and a lot of the superimposed Alfred Hitchcock inspired shots of the birds look pretty real compared to the original’s.


The Birds II actually follows Daphne Du Maurier’s short story pretty close. The family in her awesome recommended book are named the Hocken’s, and there isn’t much action from the birds, but more of unseen smashing and pecking. Alfred Hitchcock said that in The Birds, he wanted to drop everything in the original story but the main idea of the birds. The book, and the two movies altogether still make you wonder what would happen if the birds were to attack. We wouldn’t have a chance. How could fight them? There would be no place to hide.


I really have to say the only real good acting was by the girls who played the two daughter, Megan Gallagher, and Stephanie Milford, and of course Tippi Hedren. The two girls were pretty good since they haven’t been in any other movies, and are 9 and 11. I wished they would’ve focused on the birds a little more instead of the families problems, which added a little too much to the story. It would’ve been better had the plot line been more like the original, focusing very little on the characters problems, but giving you enough to chew on. If you want to see the birds really get mad, rent this movie. If your ready for a disappointment rent this movie. If you want to see a masterpiece, rent the original. The only reason I put 5 stars was because I liked it very much. You won’t like it unless your like me.