Gary Thompson: Soaring to top of bad-movie list
THERE IS growing consensus that "Plan 9 From Outer Space" has been displaced as the worst movie ever, perhaps causing Ed Wood to roll over in his grave.
THERE IS growing consensus that "Plan 9 From Outer Space" has been displaced as the worst movie ever, perhaps causing Ed Wood to roll over in his grave.
Let's get a camera down there. If Ed Wood really is rolling over in his grave, that would make a pretty good horror movie.
Better, probably, than "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" the sensationally bad "Birds" rip-off that may have supplanted "Plan 9" as the genre's nadir - judge for yourself Saturday night, when "Birdemic" plays at a midnight show at the Ritz East.
"Birdemic" is the work of dabbler/auteur James Nguyen, a California software salesman who, in his 30s, began to devote his spare time to making horror movies.
"Just like the painter needs to paint, the musician needs to play his instrument, and the singer needs to sing, I needed to make films," said Nguyen, who also has to work, so spoke to me from his software day job.
His first two movies went straight to wherever movies go when they're not good enough to go straight to DVD. "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" was his third - the $10,000 story of a couple whose first date, a trip up the Pacific Coast Highway, is disrupted by sudden attacks from vultures and eagles.
The movie wasn't much better than the first two, but Nguyen was more determined to sell it. He covered his production van with fake blood, took it to Sundance (with the title misspelled as "Bidemic" on the side), blaring eagle and vulture noises through a loudspeaker.
He attracted attention, mainly from the police.
"They pulled me over and asked me about the blood. Then they wished me luck," he said.
Maybe it worked. He got lucky. A representative from a small distributor, Severin, agreed to show up at an informal, out-of-competition screening.
There were no screams, but many in the audience found it screamingly funny. Viewers loved the fact that the digital birds, for instance, don't flap their wings (Nguyen didn't have the money for that). Their static forms just jerk about, as if designed by a kindergarten class experimenting with Photoshop. Severin bet "Birdemic" could be marketed as a so-bad-it's-good phenomenon, and so far has been proved right.
Internet clips became a sensation, and geek shows like G4 helped spread enthusiasm for Nguyen's happy disaster, which has marched across the country in limited distribution, now arriving in Philadelphia.
Nguyen, for his part, still believes the movie is mostly good, and moderately bad. And he still believes then when talking about the movie, you should work in the full title.
"I think the reason why 'Birdemic: Shock and Terror' is liked by so many people, in spite of all its imperfections in visual effects and its budget of less than $10,000, is the sincerity of its story. And its compelling story line, about what man and his machines are doing to the environment."
