Birdemic/YMMV
< Birdemic
- Anvilicious
- Ass Pull:
- Ramsey's guns, which he apparently kept in his van. He says that he used to be a Marine but he quit because he was tired of killing. So then why did he keep his guns?
- Rod suddenly finds fishing equipment in the back of the van they've been using to escape the birds.
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Rod: Hey, look! A fishing rod! I can go catch some fish! [...] Oh look, a stove! We can cook it! |
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- Bad Bad Acting: Alan Bagh (who plays Rod) seems hyperconscious of the camera, trying his hardest not to look into it. The fellows at Riff Trax imply he's an alien learning to walk like a human for the first time. The Village Voice review says it seems like Bagh is in his first class of ESL.
- Non Sequitur Episode
- Critical Research Failure:
- Rod doesn't bother cleaning the fish when plopping it in a bucket of water to cook. No wonder the kids are Squicked.
- There's also the ornithologist who refers to himself as an "orthologist", which means someone who speaks correctly or who makes the correct use of words. The irony is delicious.
- There are many serious ecological concerns associated with global climate change, from abnormally short or long seasons to widespread flooding to powerful hurricanes to more poison ivy. However, "exploding mutant birds" is not one of them.
- Nor is bird flu.
- The hawks sound like seagulls.
- James Nguyen obviously had no idea how big a deal being a Victoria's Secret cover model is - in terms of money or prestige.
- Designated Hero: Rod. He's not strong. He's not charismatic. In fact, he barely seems to have the intelligence to dress himself.
- Don't Shoot the Message: Don't expect any pro-environmental groups to add this one to their top-10 movies list.
- Ear Worm: "Hangin' out! Hangin' out! Hangin' out with my family! Havin' ourselves a party!"
- The opening theme. You'll be humming it for a while.
- Giftedly Bad: James Nguyen. A perfect example of this is found in the DVD extras: some random person sarcastically asks Nguyen why is movie is so awesome and Nguyen responds (apparently oblivious to said sarcasm) "Sincerity."
- Hilarious in Hindsight: The opening theme is stock music that gamers who played Hollywood Mogul would recognize is one of the available tunes for their fictional films.
- Idiot Plot: Swarms of eagles are attacking people everywhere, yet the main characters drive out to the country, repeatedly getting out of the car for impromptu picnics. Any time anyone is inside a car, they leave the windows rolled down. The entire movie could have been resolved by staying indoors.
- Memetic Mutation: Half of the dialogue, but some of the standouts are...
- "I have to go... I hear a mountain lion!"
- "... such as seals".
- "That was a good movie, An Inconvenient Truth."
- Most Annoying Sound: The birds' constant and amazingly goofy squawking noises.
- Narm Charm: This is the rare movie where there's so much Narm that it goes all the way back around to being charming.
- Snark Bait
- So Bad It's Good: It makes The Day After Tomorrow look like a subtle warning about, and a realistic portrayal of the effects of global warming. The entire cast, crew, writers and editors turn in performances that wouldn't just get them kicked out of any film school, but land them a restraining order as well. And it's glorious.
- Special Effect Failure: Oh, Dear God, yes.
- A dead bird is a cartoon clip art of a bird superimposed on the screen.
- Most of the "flying" birds are just superimposed animated .GIFs of the same bird.
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Kevin: Pff! The birds in Galaga look more realistic than those things. |
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- The birds don't so much "fly" as "hover while slowly flapping their wings". They look worse than the aerial mounts in World of Warcraft. Far worse.
- Enjoy the "television news set" on the news program Rod watches at home.
- The spontaneous forest fire consists of several small fire and smoke animations randomly stuck on trees.
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Kevin: Help, it's a strangely localized forest fire! |
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- The guns' recoil, muzzle flash, and sound effects are almost never timed so that any two of them occur at the same time. And instead of making the birds an unseen, mysterious enemy, which would have worked on their budget, the birds are always shown in broad daylight, for long, extended takes, revealing every possible flaw in their looping animations.
- They Just Didn't Care: Allowing for No Budget and improvised props, Nguyen still didn't exactly show that he was thorough with his direction.
- Many obviously bodged lines were left in such as "part-times Eagles fan" and "you're a cats lover".
- Nguyen also completely ignored sound mixing or even taking a normal room tone, which is why the background would change during editing. For example, during the scene with Tom Hill, you could hear a brook babbling behind him when the shot was on him, but the sound of water would vanish when the camera was off him.
- The credits of this movie claim there was an editor, but there's not much evidence of one. The majority of scenes end on long, awkward silences where everyone stands around waiting for the director to call cut, flubbed lines are cut off in mid-sentence and spliced right into the retake, and wedged between two early scenes are a few frames of a car sitting in a parking lot, which either nobody noticed or bothered to trim out completely.
- Unfortunate Implications: To get a girl stalk them creepily, get an awesome car, brag about it and talk about work.
- Wangst: When Becky is killed, Nathalie's screams, "Oh my God! She's dead! Rod! ROD! BECKY! SHE'S DEAD! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! SHE'S DEAD!"
- It takes a special movie to make someone actually Wangst about the touchy and tender subject of death. Birdemic is that special movie.
- What an Idiot!: EVERYBODY.
- During a massive bird attack, the first thing you want to do is have a nice picnic on the beach. Hey, they're extremely lucky that birds hate picnics.
- The trapped people in a bus don't bother to hide when two fellows with automatic rifles start firing wildly trying to shoot birds. Rather, they keep their heads exposed screaming and pounding on bus windows. These same people then leave the safety of the bus and STAND STILL in the open waiting to be attacked, although Ramsey sort of forced them out of the bus, and had no real plan on what to do next.
- At one point, a man tries to steal gas from Rod and the other survivors at gunpoint. After getting said gas, the man is killed by a bird. Rod drives off, and leaves the gas can, as well as the abandoned weapon on the side of the road.