Is it supposed to be bad!?! - Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010) Discussion

[–] Skibz777 15 years ago

It's not *intentionally* bad, if that's what you're asking. The advertising may hype it in an ironic sense, but the film itself was made with honest Hitchcockian intent by the filmmaker.

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[–] vertigo_14 15 years ago

i was leaning towards unintentionally bad... but then i saw the tagline: "why did the eagles attacked?" was that a typo? and with the coming sequel, i'm wonder if we've been happily duped?

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[–] Skibz777 15 years ago

"Why did the eagles & vultures attacked?" originated from a sign on the van that James Nguyen drove around in at Sundance '09, which was covered with hand-written posters and such. There was another sign that misspelled the film as "BIDEMIC.COM"...I assume that, since such a typo directly obstructs the public's ability to access information on the film, it wasn't intentional. I've explained in several threads on this board as to why I believe - nay, am CERTAIN - 'Birdemic' is UNintentionally awful.

'Birdemic 2', on the other hand...there's no doubt THAT film will turn out to be an INtentionally low-quality mess. The original 'Birdemic''s success was based entirely on its laughable incompetence; there's no way the filmmakers will attempt to make a *good* film the next time around...they'll just try to recreate the awfulness of the first one (and fail miserably, thus driving the "franchise's" reputation into the ground).

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[–] huzdaman 14 years ago

I haven't seen it yet, but it can't be harder than sitting through one of those idiotic ".....Movie" spoofs

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[–] jagzx 14 years ago

Hmmm...ok I'll admit I haven't seen the film as such, but I did see the trailer. From the trailer I get the idea that this is an intentionally bad film. Because seriously, no one would go and see this film after seeing the trailer, unless they came to see how bad it actually was. I think the director wanted it to be a complete and utter farce.

Also if you visit Bidemic.com, there's more silliness there by way of a couple of iPhone apps and not surprisingly there's a link to the actual Birdemic.com site. Maybe Nguyen was trying to kill 2 birds with one stone, pardon the pun, by promoting his buddy's (if we assume they are friends or perhaps an investor) iPhone apps and his movie at the same time. There are 2 references to birds on that site. One being the link to the Birdemic site and the other being the tag line "Guaranteed protection from wild birds shooting acid." Visit Bidemic.com and see for yourself, if you have no idea what I'm talking about.Lol.

I'm actually curious about the film now and will probably watch it for some laughs.

Seems like Nguyen is playing all of us.

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[–] Skibz777 14 years ago

'Birdemic' in and of itself was an earnest effort. Prior to being distributed, all of the film's promotional material was serious and subtle, but ever since Severin Films picked it up, the marketing has been blatantly ironic and overly silly to help cash in on the "so-bad-its-good" aspect, which really cheapens the film, in my opinion.

By now, of course, James Nguyen also seems to be capitalizing on the film's "badness" and is gladly playing along with everything, but 'Birdemic' should be taken strictly at face value, without advertising.

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[–] raymondunc 10 years ago

jagzx» Also if you visit Bidemic.com, there's more silliness there by way of a couple of iPhone apps and not surprisingly there's a link to the actual Birdemic.com site.

I'm guessing that site didn't get enough traffic to warrant paying for the domain name. Maybe it wasn't registered by anyone associated with the actual picture and was asked to take it down. I don't know how to look up a whois history when the domain name is not currently registered.

Here is what the site bidemic.com used to look like:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100508231602/http://bidemic.com/bidemic/ BIDEMIC.html
Life is like Wikipedia: There are no Facts, Just Popular Opinion

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[–] raymondunc 10 years ago

jagzx» Also if you visit Bidemic.com, there's more silliness there by way of a couple of iPhone apps and not surprisingly there's a link to the actual Birdemic.com site.

I'm guessing that site didn't get enough traffic to warrant paying for the domain name. Maybe it wasn't registered by anyone associated with the actual picture and was asked to take it down. I don't know how to look up a whois history when the domain name is not currently registered.

Here is what the site bidemic.com used to look like:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100508231602/http://bidemic.com/bidemic/ BIDEMIC.html
Life is like Wikipedia: There are no Facts, Just Popular Opinion

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[–] mishkin23 13 years ago

I agree, it seems unlikely that the tagline would have mis-spelled? Then again you never know!

Desirée! You could have gotten mustard all over his brain!

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[–] finglonger24000 13 years ago

I think they're both unintentional. Neither director seems compitent enough in real life to pull off something creatively bad.

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[–] Dewhistle 14 years ago

My curiosity was piqued by this discussion, so I looked at the director's listing on the site here, and from his previous credits, I venture to say that he did not do it intentionally.

I could see a dude making two or three movies with similar characters... they all seem to be salesmen in Silicon Valley... and very poor, well, everything, if maybe he was making them with a group of his buddies for some convention or Youtube or something, not for theatrical release. Unless this is all a big Andy Kaufman style prank, I think this dude was serious.

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[–] AcidHypnosis 14 years ago

I refuse to believe that any director in human existance would believe that "yup, I did a good job here with this movie. Now to show the world."

He had to have set out to intentionally make the worst film in human history.

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[–] Skibz777 14 years ago

What people overlook is that 'Birdemic' is actually James Nguyen's third film. I've seen his first, 'Julie and Jack', and it's just as bad a Hitchcock rip-off as 'Birdemic', sans crappy CGI. 'Birdemic' seemed like a natural progression of his inept work, unless he set out to make the same boring film three times until somebody noticed, in which case, I guess it worked, but I will firmly stand by my belief of its UNintentional badness unless Nguyen says otherwise.

Besides, 'Birdemic''s not even the worst of the so-bad-its-good movies. Are you suggesting that Tommy Wiseau, Mark Region and Claudio Fragasso may have set out to make 'The Room', 'After Last Season' and 'Troll 2' exactly the way they came out?

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[–] d_green_maverick 12 years ago

2 words, ED WOOD !

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[–] akuma634 14 years ago

There is no way that it was made to be bad. The first 45 minutes is a poorly written and acted love story and they cram in as many scenes where characters can preach about the horrors of global warming as well as how buying solar paneling and hybrid cars will help the environment. Even during bird attacks they bring in characters to whine about how it's global warming that we should be more afraid of than the killer birds. Also the movie is not the least bit fun to watch, it's as painfully show and boring as Manos: The Hands Of Fate.

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[–] Necrotard 14 years ago

I listened to an interview with the director... He said he actually submitted this to Sundance. Apparently it costs like 300 bucks just to submit your film to them. I don't imagine he would have done that unless he actually thought he had a good film. ...Then again, it could have been a publicity thing.

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[–] macgruder 14 years ago

I agree that it was trying to be a good movie when originally made, it's just the incompetence made it fail miserably.

Check out a movie called Lotto: A Modern Tale (if you can find it, http://www.lottothemovie.info/Shopping.html)for an equally messy movie. It was quite a disaster in all aspects. The premiere was filled with laughs which made the main actor go cry in the bathroom.

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[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] hugopulsar 14 years ago

Intentionally bad, I have little doubts about it. It's just way too forced, the acting, the pauses, the timings, it's just so calculated. Unlike 'The Room' which you can clearly see that they tried their best, but it was just terrible.
So, for me, The Room still is the 'masterpiece' of good bad films. Birdemic seems intentional and that simply takes all the fun from it.

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[–] Skibz777 14 years ago

I'm guessing you haven't seen a lot of movies shot for under $25,000 dollars? There's nothing "calculated" about 'Birdemic'.

If anything, 'The Room' almost reeks of "intentional" badness if only because of its complete lack of technical faults. When so much time and money goes into a production as small as 'The Room', the producers take notice of its contents (even if one of them is trying too hard to maintain an eccentric, heavily-accented facade persona to stir publicity). The same standards aren't quite applied to a $10,000 film shot by a software salesman in the Bay Area (his third feature).

I'm basing my interpretation of 'The Room' off speculation, but I'm basing mine of 'Birdemic' from personal experience (having been there when it screened at - er, *near* - Sundance). I can't solidly prove the intentions of either, but I stand firmly behind my beliefs.

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[–] hugopulsar 14 years ago

I certainly get your point and agree, especially regarding the technical point of view. Seems like The Room had a somehow bigger budget, from what I've heard, than 10.000 or 25.000. However I mantain that some scenes seem way too forced in Birdemic. What I mean is, they seem to intentionally act badly (except for the girl that shows some efforts), create unnecessary pauses and make a bad editing, that's it.
One thing that adds to a sense of 'bad film' is the sound. There's not contunity to the sound, each scene features the sound was captured in that specific moment which adds to a whole amateurish feeling...but that seems unintentional actually. This is what I think, I may be wrong and it may well be a 'genuine' film and they may have tried their best. If that's the case, well, it tops The Room the best good bad film ;)

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[–] yfguitarist 14 years ago

Complete lack of technical faults? Have you SEEN The Room?

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[–] Skibz777 14 years ago

Have you SEEN 'Birdemic'? The inconsistent sound mix, the natural lighting, the awkward camera positioning, the occasional loss of focus...THOSE are technical faults. 'The Room' was competently filmed, just incompetently written and directed. 'Birdemic' was incompetent all-around.

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[–] yfguitarist 14 years ago

The Room wasn't competently filmed if you know anything about working in films. For starters, it was shot on video and film because the director didn't know what he was doing. In one scene a picture frame falls onto the camera. The green screen compositing was atrocious. The editing was awful with no attention to continuity.

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[–] Skibz777 14 years ago

I'm talking about technical flaws: in 'Birdemic', an inconsistent sound mix (drops in ambient noise, wind interference in the microphone, bad room acoustics), reliance on natural lighting (resulting in scenes being too dark or too bright) and the occasional loss of camera focus...those are technical flaws. A clueless director placing two cameras side-by-side is a personality flaw. A picture falling in frame is a prop flaw. The rest are editing flaws.

'The Room' was filmed with professional equipment (albeit by unprofessional people), and, for what it is, it's fine in terms of lighting, framing, sound, etc.. Yes, the editing and continuity are shot to hell, but even 'The Room''s editing looks professional in comparison to 'Birdemic', in my opinion.

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[–] bing-57 10 years ago

> I'm talking about technical flaws: in 'Birdemic', an inconsistent sound mix (drops in ambient noise, wind interference in the microphone, bad room acoustics),

That was my biggest complaint. Even a high school junior making his first film is going to be able to do better sound work than this. It's simple to fade sound from one footage stream to the next. Yet, it seems that no attempt at all was made to balance and smooth out the audio; what they shot was exactly what ended up in the final product.

And the rest of the movie had the worst possible technical work. I mean, they teach you things not to do on day one of film making class and this movie violated every single one of those basic rules.

It's pretty hard to violate every single rule unless you are trying to. Even that 15-year old kid with a cell-phone camera can pace and direct a movie better than this.

For many movies, I often think, "I could make a better movie than this," but, of course, I don't have the resources. However, I am a bit of an amateur movie maker and I have made movies far better than this with a budget of zero.

I agree with a previous poster that noted that some movies are so bad that they are good, but this movie went so far around the bend that it was bad again.

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[–] jessie-labarbera 14 years ago

they should have got tommy wiseau to help out with his knack for natural dialogue and coherent plotlines..... haha

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[–] wallacesawyer 14 years ago

The movie's not funny enough to be intentionally bad.

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[–] MrLabcat 14 years ago

It's intentionally bad, there is absolutely no doubt about it.

It is very forced. The pauses are timed just long enough to make you think it's ridiculous, the dialogue is awful and the acting is terrible. The Room is not intentionally bad, you can tell Tommy Wiseau was trying his hardest. That's not the case here, they wanted to make a dumb bad movie and succeeded.

Here's the breakdown: this movie is worse than The Room technically
The Room was funnier, but this is still pretty entertaining because they really crafted it to be the worst thing ever. It's not the worst movie ever simply because they made it on purpose, but it's still fun to watch. Painfully good, one might say.

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[–] Skibz777 14 years ago

There's NO WAY this was made on purpose. If anything, 'The Room' seems far more forced and insincere...I always found it hard to believe that a $6,000,000 film made in Hollywood with a semi-professional crew could have turned out that way, as opposed to a $10,000 shot-on-video project from an amateur filmmaker (his third film, BTW) in Northern California who had no intention of mass distribution.

Having met and been exposed to James Nguyen and 'Birdemic' as far back as Sundance '09, I can say with absolute certainty that this project was made with honest intentions. People just haven't been exposed to these types of super-low-budget films before (which are made ALL THE TIME, believe me)...I've seen and worked on more than my fair share of films with budgets literally around that of a new car, made both intentionally and unintentionally bad (a lot of which are FAR worse than 'Birdemic'), and I can't help but identify 'Birdemic' as the real deal, regardless of my opinions towards the film.

You have the right to disbelieve me...I know I can't change everyone's opinion. However, I will champion the amazing (and sincere) ineptitude of this film until I die. If anything's causing doubts, it's obviously the over-ironic marketing that the DVD distributor is pushing the film with.

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[–] MrLabcat 14 years ago

I'm not calling you a liar or anything. I'm sure you know what you're talking about and I'm probably wrong, but I just refuse to believe that this is unintentional.

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[–] Skibz777 14 years ago

I hope my post didn't come off as too belligerent, because, truthfully, I can't be certain either.

I'm basing my beliefs on just three factors: the original marketing that James Nguyen used himself at Sundance (which was very serious, unlike the more comical ads Severin made), James Nguyen's previous films (which are just as technically and creatively flawed) and my own experience from screening films on the same level as 'Birdemic'. Having seen a good chunk of intentionally bad films, I'd bet very strongly that 'Birdemic' is not one, but since I wasn't involved in its production, I can't know for sure.

...I still firmly believe that 'The Room' was intentional, though. :/

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[–] wallacesawyer 14 years ago

The Room was funnier, but this is still pretty entertaining because they really crafted it to be the worst thing ever. It's not the worst movie ever simply because they made it on purpose, but it's still fun to watch. Painfully good, one might say.

Define painfully good. This movie was BAD bad. The first hour or so is just a really lame date movie. Followed by a lame, out of nowhere, sorry excuse for a horror film.

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[–] MrLabcat 14 years ago

Define painfully good. This movie was BAD bad. The first hour or so is just a really lame date movie. Followed by a lame, out of nowhere, sorry excuse for a horror film.

Painfully good meaning absolutely hilarious.

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[–] wallacesawyer 14 years ago

Painfully good meaning absolutely hilarious.

This film was not funny. Just painful.

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[–] MrLabcat 14 years ago

No

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[–] wallacesawyer 13 years ago

Yes.

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[–] TheBeardedWonder 13 years ago

I wanna say intentional, but I really have no idea. I base this off the opening scenes (which are often used to set the tone for the rest of the movie): the driving around credits for no reason, the cheesy music, even the way it's edited when the waitress is seating him, the way the camera is CONSTANTLY panning for no reason, it's EXACTLY what a movie would be like if it were trying to be bad.

But like I said, I really have no concrete way of knowing. From reading what other people have written it sounds bad by accident, but judging from the final product, I personally think it's on purpose...

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[–] liaj17 13 years ago

I actually know one of the actors, as Nguyen likes to film at and hire actors from my alma mater. (The actor is not one of the leads, but I feel it inappropriate to saw who.) Anyway, I can say with certainty that this film was supposed to be good. James Nguyen has written a number of reviews, under a pseudonym, for "Birdemic" seriously comparing it to Hitchcock. Besides, to make something intentionally bad and funny takes a degree of skill.

Nguyen is just incompetent. He has no idea how to make a film other than to point a camera at some actors and give them poorly written dialogue to choke out. And other than the scenes being pasted together, there was virtually no editing (no color correction, sound mixing, what-have-you) What's scary is his previous film, rife with the same problems, is actually slightly better.

"The Room" is a bad film, but its made fairly well. It would have easily fallen into obscurity like so many other generic low-budget indies if Tommy Wiseau and his laughable acting hadn't been in it. And at least Wiseau knew to hire people that knew generally what they were doing.

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