The Birds II: Land's End (1994)

Isn't cute how earnestly they're trying to sell themselves?

This was going to be part of that first series of October reviews I did back in 2017, to go along with my review of the original Alfred Hitchcock film, but at the time, I couldn't find it anywhere to watch and I had to give up and move on. Of course, now that I'm doing "Schlocktober," it pops up on a streaming site that I often use and I was able to see it for the first time the week before I began writing this. This movie may be completely forgotten by the mainstream but I've known of it for about as long as I have the Hitchcock movie, which has been since around 2000. I remember looking up in the back of our satellite provider's guide book for the month of October of 1999 to see what movies would be playing and seeing this listed along with the original. The fact that there was a sequel to The Birds was a surprise in and of itself, as I'd never heard my mother mention it, even though she told me a lot about the original, and I was also surprised that the sequel, as well as being made thirty years later, was rated R, while the original is PG-13. In my naive, twelve-year old mind, I figured that must mean it was much more violent and scary than the original (turns out I was half right, but let's not get ahead of ourselves). Not too long afterward, I saw The Birds, which acted as my introduction to Alfred Hitchcock and, if you've read my review of it, you'd know it's one of my absolute favorite movies period; The Birds II, on the other hand, felt virtually nonexistent, even though I knew it was a real movie. Other than seeing an image of the VHS on the internet, and maybe the video itself once at a store, I never saw anything of it for many years and I barely heard it mentioned at all. However, it didn't take me long to surmise that, as a sequel to an acclaimed classic, it fell so far short that it went through the ground and practically made it halfway to China. At this time, it holds a pathetic 2.9 out of 10 on IMDB and it's never been released beyond VHS, so that right there was enough to clue me in on its reputation, as was John Stanley's review in Creature Features, where he gave it a mere two stars and summed things up by saying, "Birds II just never flies."

The first time I saw anything of this movie was in 2013, when James Rolfe did a video review of it on his CineMassacre website and talked about how he saw it when it was originally aired on Showtime in 1994 (a premiere that Tippi Hedren hosted) and recorded it on VHS, along with the original film. The clips that he showed made the movie come off as more generic, run-of-the-mill, and cliched than anything else, and he wasn't afraid to admit that, as a kid, he enjoyed it more, although he did grow to realize that the original is the superior film. Having finally seen it myself, I can say that it's another one of those movies that's just there, without being offensively bad or laughably so, which is why it's not an installment of Movies That Suck or B to Z Movies. Trust me, I wish it was one or the other, as these types of movies are really difficult to truly criticize. It's not completely without merit, as it does have a couple of characters you can somewhat get into, the acting is decent as a whole, and the latter part of the third act does have some entertainment value in how over-the-top the climax is; otherwise, it's a dud that, even at just 82 minutes, doesn't have a lot to it.

Off the coast of Land's End, the farthest point of Gull Island, Gordy, a wildlife biologist, fishes out a seagull that has died due to being caught up in an oil-slick. Before he can take any samples for his research, he's brutally attacked and pecked to death by a large flock of birds that appeared to have been watching him from the nearby shore. Meanwhile, the Hocken family from the mainland arrives on the island to spend the summer at Land's End, at an old house they've rented, with May Hocken working as an assistant to Francis "Frank" Irving, the editor of the local paper, while her husband, Ted, a high school biology teacher, works on a thesis. Also along for the trip are their two young daughters, Jill and Joanna, and their beloved dog, Scout. While they may look like a normal, happy family, Ted is still grappling with the loss of his son, Tommy, in an automobile accident five years before, which has really damaged his career and caused a disconnect between him and his wife. Things are not helped by the fact that Frank Irving is very interested in May, despite knowing that she's married, and Ted becomes suspicious when May spends more and more time with Frank. On top of that, bizarre and violent incidents involving birds begin to happen: gulls and crows continually gather around the house, a seagull slams into Ted's head while he's painting the house, Gordy's body is found with his eyes pecked out, a bird smashes into the kitchen window and slashes Ted's hand on the glass, and Helen, who runs the town store, mentions that her nephew was attacked while out fishing. It's clear to her, as well as the Hockens and Karl Milbaugh, an old, German-born fisherman and keeper of the island's lighthouse, that something strange and frightening is going on with the birds, but Doc Rayburn, who's both the town's mayor and local physician, writes it off as nonsense, as he doesn't want the town's livelihood hurt by such rumors. But, as the attacks grow increasingly larger and more destructive, he may not have a choice but to sit up and take notice, lest the town be completely wiped out.

The movie's director, Rick Rosenthal, is certainly no stranger to doing sequels to acclaimed films, as his first feature was Halloween II in 1981. But, although that movie was quite successful, Rosenthal mostly directed television afterward, although he did some other notable features like Bad Boys, with Sean Penn; American Dreamer; Russkies, with Joaquin Phoenix; and Distant Thunder, with John Lithgow and Ralph Macchio. By the time he did The Birds II, he was almost exclusively a director of television shows and movies, and when all was said and done, he decided to use the popular pseudonym of "Alan Smithee" for his directing credit. Whether it was because he simply did the movie for a paycheck, he had a bad experience on it, or he was so embarrassed by how it turned out is unclear, and we'll likely never know what went on during its production, given how everyone associated with it wants to distance themselves from it as much as possible. Afterward, Rosenthal went on to do a lot more television work, directing shows like The Practice, Fantasy Island, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Strong Medicine, Crossing Jordan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Smallville, to name a few. He's done very little feature work since then, with his most notable being his return to the Halloween franchise with Halloween: Resurrection (another very hated sequel, but oddly, one he didn't have any problem putting his name on).

Like I said, the acting in this movie is fair, for the most part, but the problem is that the main group of characters, the Hocken family, aren't all that compelling and their emotional baggage is ultimately pointless. There's already some drama going on when they first come to the island, mainly between Ted (Brad Johnson) and May (Chelsea Field). Five years after the death of their son, Tommy, in a bad accident, Ted still hasn't come to terms with it and it's created a lot of distance between him and his wife. You also learn that it's affected his career, as he got offered a job at a college and had to finish his degree in order to get it, but he was unable to because of his grief. May takes the job at Gull Island in the hopes that being there for the summer with his family would help Ted to become close with them again and write a biology thesis that he's working on. But, rather than doing that, as he's either uninspired or just isn't satisfied with what he has written, he spends his days either with their girls, attempting to paint the house, or brooding about Tommy. May tries to reach out to him and help him move forward, and there are moments where they do have alone time, but those end up getting ruined rather quickly. Tensions between them increase when Frank Irving starts to move in on May and Ted suspects that something is going on, given how late May often returns home at night after working with Frank. Even worse, Ted's distant attitude has May unsure if she dislikes Frank's advances, as she tells him after he gives her a kiss while they're working. But, a more serious situation than their family problems arises when the birds in the area suddenly start acting more and more aggressively. Ted is the one who really notices it, as he gets whacked in the face by a seagull while painting the house, and when the body of Gordy, the biologist who's attacked at the beginning of the movie, turns up with a bunch of pecks on his face and his eyes hollowed out, Ted is sure that it was the work of birds. He befriends and starts spending time with Karl Milbaugh, a local fisherman and lighthouse keeper, and the two of them come to realize that the bird attacks are happening in the same area of the island, as well as that some of the birds involved have traveled up from as far as South America. They try to warn Doc Rayburn about it but, much to their frustration, he refuses to listen to them. While May is skeptical of Ted's story about getting hit by a seagull, she quickly sees enough to believe that there is something going on with the birds and agrees with Ted when he says that they should get out when the next ferry comes by. This seems to be what brings them together again and, when their dog, Scout, is killed in a bird attack, Ted encourages his daughter, Jill, to say goodbye to him, adding that it's what you need to do when you lose a loved one. In other words, he now knows how to move on from Tommy's death.

The two young daughters, Jill (Stephanie Milford) and Joanna (Megan Gallacher), don't have much of a function except to act as the typical bickering siblings, with Jill, the oldest, often calling Joanna a little geek and not being that enthusiastic about being stuck on the island all summer with no TV and no one to play with except her sister. The girls do begin to come around to being there, as they take to exploring the island on their bicycles with Scout, playing on the house's swing-set, shopping with their dad at the local store that Helen runs, and caring for a small bird that Scout brought into the house, naming him Egbert. Initially, they're scared of Karl Milbaugh the first couple of times they run into him, but when he reveals himself to be a kindly older gentleman who entertains them with pirate stories, they grow to like him, especially Joanna. There's one scene that shows that they do miss Tommy as much as their parents, as the discovery of the biologist's body in the shallows gets them talking about him and they ask if Tommy's body suffered the same kind of damage. Speaking of the body, its discovery not only traumatizes the girls but also serves as the first hint that something is wrong, and later on, the girls experience the growing threat firsthand when, after he escaped the house, Egbert returns and wants to be let back in. But, when they open the window and put him in his cage, other birds take the opportunity to swarm in and attack, with their parents having to come to the rescue. The next day, the girls say they believe that the other birds did it because they were angry that Egbert befriended them. Another bird attack, larger in scope and more ferocious, threatens the entire family, forcing them to take shelter in the house, and takes the life of Scout. The next morning, after they've buried him, Ted encourages Jill to say her goodbyes so she can move on, which she does. Their parents ensure them that Scout is now with Tommy. From then on, as they try to escape the island, Ted and May do everything they can to protect the girls from the marauding birds. The movie ends with a scene where they're forced to overturn the motorboat they're using to escape and take shelter underneath it. While doing so, Joanna ends up stranded outside and her father has to come to her rescue.

Scout, the family dog, is quite the loving pooch but can be a big troublemaker sometimes, most notably when he first brings Egbert into the house in his mouth and, while everyone is distracted by helping the injured bird, Scout helps himself to their roast chicken dinner. However, as with most pets in horror movies, Scout knows that there's something sinister going on, as he's often seen barking at the birds that gather around the house (which ends up spoiling an intimate moment between Ted and May in one instance) and alerts the family to strange things, like the abandoned boat they see floating in the shallows when they first arrive at the house. Near the end of the movie, Scout is again outside, barking at the birds, when Joanna comes out and tries to pull him back into the house. As they walk back to the door, a large eagle swoops down at Joanna but Scout jumps up and grabs the bird out of thin air, saving her. However, this causes all of the other birds to go berserk and they swarm and overwhelm Scout. Once the girls are safely back inside, Ted beats the birds off of Scout and brings him back into the house. But, during the night, Scout dies from his injuries and, the next morning, they bury him and say their goodbyes before attempting to escape the island.

Frank Irving (James Naughton), the editor of the island's local newspaper, is supposed to learn from May how to use a new computer program in editing his paper but, from the moment he meets her, the only thing Frank is interested in is May herself. He also meets Ted that first time and, while he's friendly enough to him, there is a dismissive air about him when they discuss Ted's job as a high school biology teacher and with how he mistakenly calls him "Fred." And again, he's eying May right then and there, and as they spend more time together, he starts to move in on her, taking her out for lunch and drinks at the local tavern and telling her his story about how he first got started as a photographer in Vietnam and went on to make it his profession before he ended up at Gull Island. When he learns about how Ted's grappling with their son's death has caused a rift between him and May, Frank, while sympathizing with Ted, suggests that the two of them should go in separate directions. The next day, while she's showing him how to use the computer program, Frank takes the opportunity to kiss May, which she initially goes into but then, pulls away from. He apologizes, saying that he thought she wanted it, and May admits that she doesn't know if that's not true. Following the bird attack that happens to Jill and Joanna that night, May doesn't come in for work, much to Frank's confusion, and he calls, trying to convince her to come in. She doesn't tell him what's going on, so he's unsure if it's because of what happened the day before or what. At the end of the movie, when the birds have swarmed the town, Frank grabs his camera and starts snapping pictures. However, the birds don't seem to appreciate this, as a raven comes flying down at him and smacks him in the face, knocking him to the ground. When the full-on attack happens and the Hockens are trying to escape, Frank allows them to use his motorboat, but he stays behind to continue taking pictures. This decision results in him getting caught up in a big fuel explosion that occurs, though whether or not it killed him is unclear.

Akin to Old Man Marley in Home Alone, Karl Milbaugh (Jan Rubes) initially seems like a sinister character, one whom Jill and Joanna are afraid of. But, that proves to not be the case when he shows up at the Hockens' doorstep one night, having caught a very large fish that is too big for him to eat by himself and so, he gives it to the family. Ted is so taken with this act of generosity that he invites Karl in to eat the fish with them and, when he does, he endears himself to the family, particularly the girls, when he entertains them with pirate stories. He also happens to be the one who truly understands what's going on with the birds. An old, worldly fisherman and the keeper of the island's lighthouse, he's seen gathering the dead bodies of several birds that he comes across and tells Ted that there are more gathered on the island now than he's ever seen. As more attacks occur, Karl and Ted come to find out that all of the incidents involving the birds are happening on their end of the island, and Karl also confirms that South American birds are among those that are there. Both of them are frustrated when Doc Rayburn refuses to do anything when they attempt to warn him, and Karl is sure that what's going on is nature's revenge against mankind. He tells Ted early on, "The land belongs to us. The world belongs to them," and later tells him, after the birds have come in with the tide, that mankind has asked for this "war," saying, "Mother Nature can take only so much before she hits back, with all she's got." He also tells Ted of the attacks on Bodega Bay in the original film. All in all, though he doesn't have much screentime, Karl proves to be the one truly interesting character in the film, not just for how he views the birds but also the brief sense of his personal history you get when he talks about fleeing his country, how it made him feel sorry for himself, and resulted in him spending his entire life alone. It makes you wish that he would live to the end but, nope. On the night before the climax, the birds attack his lighthouse and cause him to fall to his death from atop it. Ted finds his body the next morning, with his face scratched up and his eyes pecked out.

Even for this kind of movie, Doc Rayburn (Richard K. Olsen), the town mayor and physician, is an absurd character. Nearly every scene with him is set at the local tavern, which he calls his "other office," and he refuses to even consider the idea of birds attacking people. He laughs off Ted telling him that a seagull slammed into him while he was painting his house, saying that he's never heard of birds deliberately attacking people, and when Gordy's body is found in the shallows, with his eyes pecked out and beak-marks all over his face, Rayburn doesn't believe birds were behind that either, writing it off as having been caused by fish after Gordy fell into the water. He's so dead-set against it that you would think he knows more than he's letting on and might even have something to do with it, though that turns out to not be the case. When Ted and Karl try to warn him about the increasing bird attacks late in the film, he again refuses to believe them or do anything about it, his reasoning being that Gull Island is a town that makes its living on fishing, as well as with the occasional tourist, and he doesn't want the businesses to be scared away. Yeah, it's that subplot from Jaws again, only taken to ridiculous extremes. Moreover, as slimy and selfish as Mayor Vaughn was, Rayburn acts like a complete, stuck-up prick in these scenes, refusing to do anything, even when Ted dumps a sack of dead birds on the tavern's pool table, accusing Karl of putting him up to it, and even flat-out says that he's going to ignore what's going on. He also bars Ted from doing anything, telling him, "We like to go through channels around here, do things the right way,"; in other words, his way. This whole time, the bartender, Jessie (Phil Loch), is completely brown-nosing Rayburn, acting just as dickish as he is and telling Karl that Ted is just as crazy as he is. The guy also has that type of shit-eating grin that you can't help but want to punch. It's not until birds gather in town that Rayburn finally sees that there is a threat, but this doesn't keep him from still acting like an asshole. Grabbing a shotgun, he says, "All those birds need is a little attitude adjustment," and has the gall to mock those attempting to leave on the ferry, calling them "chicken-livered mainlanders." However, he gets put in his place when a crow dives down at him and knocks him to the ground. He, Jessie, and some others attempt to shoot all the birds but they soon get overwhelmed. That's when Rayburn actually tries to jump to the ferry as it departs but misses and falls into the water. He then dies a bad death when a stray flare ignites a lot of fuel that had been accidentally spilled into the water during the chaos.

I knew fairly early on that Tippi Hedren was in this movie but that her role amounted to little more than a cameo and that she wasn't even reprising her original character of Melanie Daniels. Instead, she plays Helen, the kindly owner of a small store on the island who befriends the Hockens when they first visit it, especially the girls, whom she gives treats to. She was friends with Gordy, the man who's killed at the beginning of the movie, and you hear at one point that her nephew was attacked while he was out fishing as well. Because of this, despite what Doc Rayburn says, she knows that something strange is going on and, like Ted and the others, she's proven right at the end when the birds swarm the town. She helps Frank when he gets knocked to the ground while taking pictures and is seen boarding the ferry, trying to get the Hockens to join her. And... that's literally all she has to do here. While it is nice to see Hedren again and she certainly does her best with what she's given, you wish that, if they went through the trouble of getting her, they would have utilized her more. At the time, Hedren said she was disappointed she didn't have more of a role but later, in a 2002 interview, she described the movie as horrible and something she's embarrassed by, so maybe its a good thing she wasn't in it more.

Doing a sequel to a much beloved classic is not an easy task in the least, especially when it's the work of, arguably, the greatest filmmaker who ever lived, Alfred Hitchcock. If Psycho II proves anything, though, it's that it's not completely impossible... if you have a truly capable director, which is not quite how I would describe Rick Rosenthal. While not a bad director, as I think Halloween II is a much better film than people give it credit for (suck it, Newt), he definitely can't be called an auteur, and when he was assigned to do The Birds II, it doesn't look like he put that much effort in his direction. It's competently-made but shot mostly in a run-of-the-mill, generic manner, with few scene compositions, camera angles and movements, or editing tricks that make it stand out. That said, there are some instances where it comes off as pretty good on a technical level, such as some big, wide shots of the Hockens' house, especially those set at dusk, with birds flying up in the sky and the house's swing-set and small shed in the shot; the juxtaposition of gathering birds against the house during some nighttime scenes; the blue lighting that is often used during the nighttime scenes; and a big wide shot of birds flying around the lighthouse's top at night. Speaking of which, there's one instance in the buildup to Karl's death where Rosenthal goes for a Hitchcockian kind of effect. Karl looks out his window and the lighthouse illuminates some birds that have gathered on some nearby rocks but, each time the rotating light comes back around, there are more and more birds on the rocks. It's an interesting twist on the scene in the original, where the birds gather on the playground behind Melanie, but it could have been pulled off more effectively. And the attack scenes are edited in a manner that does help to make them exciting but also comprehensible, and they're done well enough to where you can't tell the difference between the real birds and the fake birds. So, the film does have some skill behind it, but you don't see much of it and what is there is hard to appreciate because it gets lost in how uninspired it is as a whole.

The setting of Gull Island and Land's End, both of which were shot in North Carolina, come off as lovely enough and picturesque, with their flowing, grassy fields, lovely shores, the lighthouse, and it's certainly appealing to those who love white, sandy beaches, which I do. The house that the Hockens rent for the summer, despite being a bit rundown, is also pleasing to the eye, especially on the inside in how it looks very quaint and cozy. I've read in trivia that it's the same house that was used for the Brenner family in the original film and, looking at it, that does appear to be the case, as it looks pretty much the same. Since the original was filmed entirely on the opposite side of the country, they must have had to move it down to the Carolinas, which was no easy task, I'm sure. But, the thing is, the town of Gull Island isn't as memorable as Bodega Bay was in the original. You don't see that much of it or of the people who live there but, when you do, it's often in scenes with Doc Rayburn, someone who makes it clear to Ted that he doesn't take kindly to mainlanders trying to interfere in his town's business. There are some friendly townspeople here and there, especially Helen, the game warden who comes across Gordy's abandoned boat, and, of course, Karl, and they don't agree with Rayburn's dismissive feelings, but his attitude and that of Jessie, the bartender, make the town come off like it's full of a bunch of hicks, particularly at the end when they think they can actually stop the bird attacks by simply shooting all of them. Bodega Bay, on the other hand, felt much more normal and down to Earth in its depiction, with the townspeople's reactions to the unexpected and unusual appearance of someone like Melanie Daniels, as well as the underlying belief at one point that she's somehow responsible for what's happening, coming off as natural. Plus, those townspeople weren't so crazy to think they could stop the attacks with a bunch of guns, despite what that one guy at the diner's bar suggested.

Another way in which this movie fails in comparison to the original is its attempt to tie the human drama and the characters' backstory together with the actual plot. In the original film, you had the dilemma with Lydia Brenner being a woman who, having just lost her husband, is afraid of being abandoned by her son and feels threatened when he starts to develop an attraction to Melanie. But, as the movie progresses and the characters are forced to deal with this massive threat, Lydia becomes closer to Melanie, with the movie ending on a loving, mother-daughter moment between the two of them, which ties in with the notion that Melanie's actual mother had abandoned her and her father years before. Here, we have the dilemma of Ted not being able to move on from losing his son, something that he still has nightmares about and which is causing a rift between him and his family, especially May. As a result, May, despite instinctively pulling away from Frank Irving's advances on her, begins to wonder if it isn't something she doesn't want. This causes even more tension between her and her husband, as Ted begins to suspect something is going on. But, all of this backstory ends up being pointless in the long run because of how easily things are wrapped up. After Scout is killed during one of the more ferocious bird attacks and they have to bury him and say their goodbyes the next morning, Ted encourages Jill to tell Scout goodbye, saying that it's something you need to do when you lose a loved one. Because of this, he now knows how to move on from Tommy's death and it feels contrived. And the issue with Frank is dropped completely after a close moment between Ted and May on the beach one morning. There's no confrontation between Frank and Ted, no moment where May tells him that she does love her husband, or a moment where he sees that the family is now back together. He simply lets them escape on his motorboat and is killed during an explosion that happens during the climax.

I feel that The Birds is Alfred Hitchcock's scariest film because of the ominous atmosphere it creates, in large part due to the fact that no explanation is given for why the birds have seemingly turned against mankind and also because it's strongly hinted that it's not an isolated incident. None of that feeling of abject terror and mystery is to be found here, as the bird attacks are given a pretty blatant, ecological explanation in how the movie opens with Gordy fishing a dead bird, covered in oil, out of the water, leading to his being attacked and killed. Other dead birds are found by Karl throughout the film and pollution and contamination of the beaches is mentioned during the scene where he and Ted confront Doc Rayburn with what's going on. It was hinted in the original film, and all but said in that movie's very trailer, that the bird attacks may be a sudden revolt against mankind for centuries of mistreatment and abuse, but this film puts it right out in front, with the ecological angle as well as other images, like the Hockens having a roast chicken dinner and keeping an injured wild bird in a cage, the latter of which seems to directly correspond with an attack. Interestingly, that scene of the birds swarming into the girls' room is similar to a moment in the original story by Daphne du Maurier, and the film takes another plot point from that story in that the birds attack at high tide. Add to that the notion that the victims are a couple with children (the daughter in the story is also named Jill) and that Rayburn is akin to a character in the story who is unfazed by the bird attacks, deciding to shoot them, and you've got a movie that, surprisingly, is a bit more faithful to the source material than Hitchcock's film was. Of course, that doesn't make a movie good and, while I can respect the effort, it still has nothing on Hitchcock's creepily ambiguous approach to the story decades before and makes the birds feel like less of a terrifying force of nature, as they were originally.

While not terribly profane or sensual at all, The Birds II does earn its R-rating by considerably amping up the gore. It's not on the level of other, much more gruesome killer animal movies like Piranha 3-D, but they really grabbed onto that scene from the original where Lydia Brenner finds Dan Fawcett's body, with his eyes hollowed-out, and exploited it as much as they could, as the birds go straight for the eyes whenever they attack. Gordy's death during the opening is a pretty grisly spectacle, and when his body is later found in the shallows, Rick Rosenthal makes sure that we get another detailed look at his eye-less, clawed face. The same thing happens when Karl is killed; when Ted finds his body the next day after the birds knocked him off the top of his lighthouse, you see that his face is all scratched up and his eyes have been pecked out as well (unfortunately, the prosthetic heads in both of these scenes come off as a little too fake when freeze-framed and looked at more closely). You see a lot of ugly scratches and peck-marks whenever someone is attacked, such as when the seagull knocks Ted off his ladder while he's painting the house, a bird smashes through a window and causes him to cut his hand on the glass, Ted fends off those that fly into his daughters' room, Scout gets massacred when he defends Joanna, and Frank gets knocked down while attempting to take pictures of the birds. But the climax is where they really let loose with the violence, as you see a bunch of people getting pecked and scratched, their eyes getting gouged out, and, most hilariously, birds literally exploding into big balls of blood when they get shot! If nothing else, this movies does manage to deliver some pretty good carnage.

I also have to give the filmmakers credit in their handling of the birds themselves, as it looks like they used real animals for virtually the whole film. I'm sure there were some fake or animatronic birds mixed in with the real ones, as it would have probably been impossible to do the movie otherwise, but for the most part, I honestly can't tell, as the scenes are edited and shot well enough to where the illusion is pretty seamless. While the individual birds are mostly just "face-less," with no presence or personality to them, there are a couple of standouts. One of them is Egbert, the small bird that Jill and Joanna keep as a pet for a little bit after Scout brings him into the house. He flies out a downstairs window at one point, but returns a few nights later, tapping the window as if he wants to be let in. When the girls go to let him in, this gives a bunch of other birds that have been gathering outside the chance to attack; whether Egbert was in on it, acting as a lure, if it was just an accident on his part, or if he was possibly coerced into doing it is left ambiguous. The other standout bird is this big, badass eagle that swoops down at Joanna when she and Scout are walking back to the house's front door one night. While Scout manages to stop it before it hurts her, his grabbing it out of thin air and wrestling it to the ground causes all of the other birds that were gathering nearby to attack, leading to his death. That's another thing: you get more types of birds here than you did in the original. In addition to the classic seagulls and crows, you also get that eagle, a bunch of pigeons, some finches, and even some birds that have journeyed all the way up from South America.

But, where the birds fall short is when they attempt to use visual effects to put them into scenes. They look okay when you see a crow flying right at the screen at one point and when you see that wide-shot of them circling around the top of the lighthouse right before they attack Karl (that said, if you watch closely before the scene cuts, you can see the birds on the left side of the swarm freeze in midair), no doubt because those scenes take place a night. But, when they're seen flying about the town and above people's heads in the buildup to the climax and heading towards the mainland at the end? They look horrendous. At first, I thought it was a case of bad early CGI but now, I think they instead composited some elements of actual birds into the scene. However they did it, it looks really off and wonky, and you can tell that the birds aren't really there, as they don't blend with the live-action actors and their movements and the way they mass together are very unnatural. Granted, some of the compositing and blue-screen work in the original have unavoidably aged, but there are some shots here that look as if they were made around the same time as the original but with less money and talent behind them. Hopefully you can make out how bad these effects look from these still images, as you have to see them in motion in order to truly grasp their crap factor.

The first thing you see when the movie opens is a large mass of seagulls that are gathered on a shore. It's revealed that they're watching Gordy, a wildlife biologist who, while out on his boat, fishes the body of a seagull, covered in oil, out of the water and places it on the deck. As he examines it, the gulls on the shore suddenly take to the sky. He opens up a case and gets some tubes out in order to run some tests, as the gulls head straight for him. He doesn't notice their approach until one sets down on his boat's outboard motor. Another gull lands on the edge next to him, and when he turns his back, a crow comes at him from behind and blindsides him, pecking him right in his left eye. Panicking, he tries to start the boat's motor, only to be knocked down when another bird suddenly comes at him from the front. Once on the floor, he's completely swarmed, his face pecked at repeatedly and his eyes reduced to black, bloody sockets. This grisly scene then transitions to the introduction of the Hocken family, as they ride the ferry to Gull Island and feed some birds that follow after them. Upon reaching the island, they drive out to Land's End and arrive at the house they're renting for the summer, admiring the inside and the nice view of the ocean, though the girls are disappointed when they find that the place doesn't have a single television set. While they're unloading the car, Scout is shown barking at the water, specifically at the sight of Gordy's boat drifting nearby. Jill walks up beside Scout and notices the boat, as do Joanna and Ted when they join her. Joanna wonders if whoever is on the boat can see them, yelling and waving but getting no response. May then calls them to help her finish unloading the car and they join her, as the boat continues to flounder while gulls circle around it; it was too far away for them to see the big splotch of blood on its side. That night, birds are shown to be gathering in the trees near the house, while inside, Ted is tossing around in bed in a restless sleep. It's revealed that he's having a dream about Tommy and the crash that took his life. He bolts up awake when the shot of the huge vehicle crashes towards the camera. Horrified and in a cold sweat, he gets out of bed and goes to check on his daughters, who he finds are completely safe in their room.

The next day, the family drives into town so May can start her job working at the local paper. They don't notice that, as they drive by the ocean, the boat they saw earlier is being towed in. After they've dropped off May and she and Ted have met Frank Irving, Ted and the girls go to the local store, where they meet Helen, who takes a liking to the girls and tells Ted that nothing is going to bother them while they're at Land's End. Joanna then excitedly tells Ted that she sees the boat they saw yesterday and when he walks outside, he sees that the police are there. Helen walks out to join him and, when she asks the game warden what happened, he says that the boat ran onto some rocks and that there was no sign of Gordy. This time, they notice the blood that's splattered all over a corner of the deck. That evening, at the house, while the girls play on the swing-set, Scout spies a small bird on the ground and follows it over to behind the nearby shed. Ted calls the girls in for dinner but Jill becomes preoccupied with finding Scout, whom she can hear barking nearby. Ted tells her he'll figure out that it's dinnertime on his own and she joins her family inside. Later, as they're sitting down to dinner, Ted carving the roast chicken, Scout comes in, carrying something in his mouth. He heads under the table, where they see that it's a bird. At first, they think it's dead, but when he spits it out, it starts fluttering and chirping loudly. Ted picks it up and asks for something to put it in. May gives him a small box and he puts the bird down in there. The girls want to keep the bird as a pet and May tells them that they'll talk about it after dinner. Ted then puts the box away and they sit back at the table... only to find that the chicken he was carving is now gone. They learn that, while they were distracted, Scout took the opportunity to help himself to the chicken.

The next day, while May is at work, the girls go exploring on their bikes, while Ted stays at the house to work on his thesis. But, after sitting around and not getting the inspiration to write, Ted walks outside and notices that the paint on the house is old and chipping. He gets a ladder and a can of red paint and starts painting on the side of the house, as the girls come back with Scout. He then notices the birds hovering in the air around him, when a seagull suddenly dive-bombs him from behind, causing him to fall off the ladder and splash paint on the porch. The girls run up to him to show him sand-dollars that they found, when Scout gets right next to Ted and shakes off some water onto him. He has the girls take the dog away, as he gets back to his feet and realizes that the bird left a bleeding wound on his forehead, before turning around and looking at them as they continue to hover in the air nearby. Later, Frank drives May home, as Ted tries to clean up the paint he spilled on the porch. Once he's gone, Ted and May talk a little bit on the porch, when May notices the band-aid he has on his forehead. He tells her about the seagull slamming into him but, even though she obviously doesn't believe him, she suggests that he have a doctor look at it.

The following day, Ted goes to visit Doc Rayburn, only to learn from his nurse that Rayburn, who's also the mayor, is at his "other office": the Tides Tavern. Arriving there, he meets up with Rayburn and the two of them sit in a booth, as Ted shows him the cut the seagull left in his forehead. Rayburn is immediately dismissive of the notion that such an injury was the work of a bird, saying he's never heard of somebody being attacked by one in his life (he must not know many people, then). One man at the bar, however, mentions that there are more gulls in the area than there normally are. Meanwhile, while May is talked into having lunch with Frank, Jill and Joanna are playing on the beach with Scout, when they come across a dead bird lying in the sand. As they examine it, a body is swept in by the waves and Scout runs over to it, forcing the girls to follow in order to pull him away. The tide turns the body over, revealing it to be Gordy, whose pecked, eyeless face is now exposed for the girls to see. They scream at the sight of this and run back up the beach with Scout. On the way, they run into an old fisherman and they scream at the sight of him as well. Later, the police have arrived to take the body away. Rayburn and Frank are there as well, the latter asking Rayburn what he thinks happened to Gordy. Rayburn figures he drowned and that the marks on his face were caused by fish nibbling at him. Ted suggests that the marks on his face are similar to the cut the gull left on his head but, again, he's dismissed. At the same time, Jill, Joanna, and May watch the old fisherman pick up the dead bird from before and place it in a bucket. That night, as birds gather around the house, Scout barking at them, Ted and May put their girls to bed. Joanna's questions about what happened to Gordy lead to the topic of Tommy and the question of why he had to die. After they're put to bed, Ted and May have a talk about Tommy, May trying to help her husband to move on and to let her help him. But, Ted remains distant, and instead of going to bed, goes downstairs, telling May that he'll be up in a while. Down in the kitchen, he pours himself a drink, when he hears a tapping sound on the window behind the sink. He sees a crow sitting on the other side of the glass and it flies away after he sees it. Ted walks over to the door and looks out its window, when the crow suddenly comes flying at him, smashing through the glass in front of him, slashing his hand open and causing him to drop the bottle of liquor he was holding. As he looks at his cut, the crow lands on the outside of the window before flying away again. May comes downstairs to see what happened and Ted shows her the cut on his hand, telling her it was the work of another bird.

While shopping at Helen's store again, Ted has a conversation with her and she tells him that, despite what Doc Rayburn says, they both know there's something strange going on with the birds lately, adding that her nephew was injured by birds while fishing off the shoals south of the island. Elsewhere, Jill and Joanna are out riding their bikes, when they come across a lighthouse. As they wonder who lives there, they find out when the fisherman they saw the day before shows up. Again, the sight of him sends them off screaming. That night, as Scout is again barking at birds, the girls are in their room, playing with and feeding Egbert, the bird Scout brought in, as they talk. Suddenly, Egbert flies up and out of their room. They chase him downstairs, yelling for their parents to help catch him, but when they all gather in the living room, they see an open window and realize that he flew out. After consoling them about losing Egbert, Ted and May are out on the front porch, sitting on the swing, when their conversation leads to the two of them getting intimate with each other. But, as the passion builds, birds start to gather out on the swing-set in the yard, appearing to be watching them. Scout notices them and starts to bark, which pulls Ted's attention away from May. She tries to get him back in the mood but he's now more interested in whatever Scout is sensing, prompting her to give up and head back into the house. The next day, Ted, again unable to work on his thesis and dissatisfied with what he's written so far, goes bike-riding with the girls. While coming back as the sun is setting, they ride by the fisherman, who's sitting in his boat in a small inlet, having found the body of another dead bird. May tries to call the house and Ted and the girls get back in time to hear it ringing. But, it quits right before Ted can answer, and so, May goes out to the tavern to have a drink with Frank. When she arrives home that night, she and Ted all but get into a fight, with Ted not being happy when he learns that she's been with Frank. But, just as things are about to reach the boiling point, they receive a visitor in the form of the old fisherman, who introduces himself as Karl Milbaugh. Having caught an enormous fish that's too big for him to eat by himself, he offers it to the family, and Ted, in turn, invites him in to join them in eating it. After dinner, during which he entertained Jill and Joanna with pirate stories, Karl is asked about the birds' strange behavior and he tells Ted that there are more birds there than he's ever seen before. He then heads back to his lighthouse, some birds flying behind him as he goes.

Birds are shown gathering outside Frank's office the following day, though neither he nor May notice, as she's too busy trying to teach him how to use the computer software, which leads to a much more intimate moment between them than she expected. That night, at the house, dozens and dozens of cooing pigeons gather in the trees and on the roof. Inside, Joanna awakens to the sound of a tapping outside the window next to Jill's bed, and when she wakes up and looks, she sees Egbert's silhouette on the other side. She gets up, goes over to the window, and draws the blind to reveal that it is, indeed, him, seemingly wanting in again. Jill wakes up and Joanna points this out to her. Jill opens the window, allows Egbert to climb up onto her hand, and takes him over and puts him back in his cage. A pigeon from outside flies through the window, followed by more and more birds, until they begin completely swarming in the room. The terrified girls scream for their parents and freeze in the middle of the room, as more and more birds come in through the window. May walks in and, seeing what's going on, yells for Ted. He comes in and, closing the door behind him, grabs a towel, and flings it at the birds, telling May to get the girls out. However, May is too scared to move, and a crow lands on her shoulder and starts pecking at her head. Ted tries to help his wife, as Scout barks from the other side of the door, while more and more birds swarm into the room. May gets scratched along her arm and shoulder before she's finally able to get the strength to get the girls out of the room. This leaves Ted in there by himself to fend off the birds, getting repeatedly pecked and scratched as he flails around, with a picture on the wall and a lamp on a small table getting knocked off in the chaos. Finally, the birds depart just as abruptly as they came in. A cutaway shows that Egbert's cage got knocked over and he's nowhere to be found.

Come morning, Ted is boarding up the window that leads into the attic, while down below, May and the girls bury some dead birds while trying to figure out what happened, Joanna suggesting that the birds were angry at Egbert over his befriending them. Ted climbs down from a ladder and shows May the body of a bird he found on the roof, saying he's never seen that kind of bird before, figuring that it might not be of a local species. May is then distracted by a phone call from Frank, who asks her to come in to work for a couple of hours but she tells him that she can't. She doesn't go into any details, merely telling him that they had a "problem" there the night before, and assuring him that it has nothing to do with what happened between them the day before; Ted walks in on the conversation right as she says that. After she hangs up, and Ted tells her that she doesn't have to be there if she doesn't want to be, Karl pulls up in his truck. Seeing the birds they put in the ground, Karl comments on how they had some visitors, before showing him a map and pointing out that all of the bird attacks have been occurring in roughly the same area of the island. Ted then shows Karl the body of the bird he showed to May (which has doubled in size since he put it in the hole in the ground), which Karl identifies as a species he's never known to show up there. He shows Ted a dead bird that he himself found, having fished it out of the wetlands the day before, and tells him that he had a hard time identifying it because it's only common to those who live in Brazil. The two of them then try to warn Doc Rayburn of what's going on, even showing him some of the dead birds from the previous night's attack, but he refuses to do anything about it or even to listen, and when Ted threatens to do something by himself, he's told the only "right way" of doing things on the island is Rayburn's way. Frustrated, the two of them leave and Karl drives Ted back to the house. When Ted walks in, he finds no sign of his family and he panics a little bit, only to head out the front door and find them all coming back from a walk. He quickly gets them into the house before darkness falls. Later that night, as May sleeps with the girls, Ted secures the boarded up windows and closes them, before heading downstairs. He keeps the fireplace burning, while sitting on the couch with Scout, rubbing his head.

He stays there all night long and eventually falls asleep on the couch, which is where May finds him the next morning. She wakes him up, and when she says he never came to bed, he said that he had to keep the fire going to keep the birds from coming down the chimney. She takes him outside, showing him what a lovely day it is, but he tells her that they can't stay and she says she'll start packing later on. But first, the two of them have a nice moment to themselves on the beach, with May bathing herself in the water (while still wearing her clothes) before embracing and kissing her husband as the tide laps at their feet and they manage to reconcile their differences. Later, Ted goes to see Karl at the lighthouse and finds him watch a huge mass of gathering birds on the rocks below. Karl tells him that they came in with the tide the night before and goes on to say that he believes that what's happening is a revenge on mankind by nature. He then tells Ted about a similar string of bird attacks that occurred thirty years before, on the west coast, and that evening, Ted tells May about it as well. He also says that he thinks they should leave on the 10:00 ferry the next morning. Come nightfall, Karl is sitting up in his lighthouse, pouring over some books, when he hears the sound of birds cackling outside. Looking out the window, he sees birds gathering on the rocks near the shore, and each time the lighthouse's beam illuminates them, more and more of them have joined the gathering.

Back at the Hockens' house, Joanna is outside, looking for Scout, when she finds him sitting across from a fence and barking at the birds that line the top of it. She follows a path through the tall grass that dots the yard up to him, admonishing him for not staying inside the house. Speaking of which, Ted then learns that Joanna is outside and he steps out on the front porch to see her slowly walking back to the house with Scout. He tells her to walk towards him very slowly, as he picks up a shovel to use as a weapon if he has to. Neither of them notice the huge eagle that flies up to the top of the shed behind her and proceeds to swoop down at her. Before it can reach her, Scout jumps up and grabs it in his mouth, wrestling it to the ground. This sends the other birds into a violent frenzy and they come flying straight at Joanna and Scout. Ted grabs Joanna and carries her back to the house, giving her to May so that she can get her inside. Scout continues to mangle the eagle, when the birds swarm him and start pecking at him furiously. Ted runs back to Scout and gets rid of the birds, while finishing the eagle off by putting the shovel through it. He carries Scout into the house and lays him on the couch. The family gathers around, wondering if he's going to be okay, when the birds start slashing their way through the screen windows lining the outside of the porch, fly through, and pound on the doors. They batter against the boards that cover the other windows and also begin to peck their way through the doors. Ted tells May to go call the sheriff, but when she picks up the phone, a crow lands and deliberately disconnects the phone line outside. The line shorts out, causing the lights to go out inside the house, and the family huddles together, the parents trying to comfort the girls, as the birds continue their relentless assault. May tells Ted to do something but there's little he can do, except clear off and upend a table to use as an extra bit of barrier against the door that the birds are trying to break through. He returns to his family and they continue to hunker down, when the birds suddenly decide that they've had enough and leave as suddenly as their attack began. The clock in the room suddenly chiming startles them but they quickly calm down when they realize what it is.

At the lighthouse, birds are swarming all around the very top of the building, which Karl sees when he walks the steps all the way up there. As he watches, the birds start smashing through the windows and fly at him, easily overwhelming him, until he smashes through the glass behind him and falls to his death outside. Once they've done their dirty work, the birds leave, the lighthouse's light fading with their departure. The next morning, while Doc Rayburn is told by his nurse that there are a bunch of injured people over at his office, the Hockens are forced to say goodbye to their beloved Scout, who succumbed to his injuries during the night. After having buried him, Joanna places a seashell on the mound as a makeshift flower. Back in town, birds are everywhere, hovering up above, milling around on the ground and among people's feet, and perched anywhere they can get to. Frank asks Helen when it started and she says just a few minutes ago. Meanwhile, after ripping a dead bird out of the engine, Ted tells May to try to start their car but, try as she might, it will not turn over. They're not going anywhere in it, and it's too far for them to walk to town before the ferry arrives. Jill then suggests they ask Karl for help and Ted heads over to the lighthouse, while in town, Frank grabs his camera and some film and begins taking pictures of as many birds as he can see. Reaching the lighthouse, Ted finds a bunch of dead birds on the ground, leading up to Karl's body. When he turns him over, he sees that his face is all pecked up and his eyes have been hollowed out. While he drives back to the house in Karl's truck, Frank continues snapping pictures in town, until a crow comes diving at him and knocks him off his feet. Helen promptly runs to his aid, while at the house, Ted arrives and piles his family into the truck, simply telling them that Karl can't come at the moment. When they arrive in town, they find that a number of vehicles are waiting to leave on the ferry, and so, they decide to simply walk aboard it. They disembark and walk through the crowd of people to the ferry, as everyone is having to duck to avoid the marauding birds. Ted leaves his family by a car at one point in order to go talk with Rayburn.

In the tavern, Rayburn is treating the wound of Frank's face as he lies down on a pool table, when Ted comes in and tells him that the lighthouse is out and Karl is dead. He also warns them that the birds will likely attack again at high tide, but Rayburn is sure that he can handle them with shotguns. Incredulous at this, Ted storms out of the tavern and rejoins his family and the others in waiting for the ferry, which is approaching. Rayburn, Jessie, and some other gun-toting townspeople step out of the tavern and Rayburn actually mocks for them being afraid. But, a crow swoops down at him and scrapes him on the side of his face. Jessie promptly aims his gun and blasts open one bird, splattering its innards everywhere. This prompts a full-on attack and the birds start swarming. Rayburn and his posse fire at them, while the townspeople have to duck down to try to avoid being hit. The Hockens run for it, as people are sliced into with beaks and pecked, while the gun-crazy posse puts holes in various parts of buildings and other structures. The birds head for an oncoming ferry and a seagull flies at and hits the pilot, causing him to smash his face against the window, splattering blood on it. People continue to get pecked and scratched, with Jessie getting knocked over and shooting a hole in his own tavern's sign as a result. Amid the chaos, Helen boards the ferry that managed to make it, the Sea Dragon. She motions for the Hockens to join her but the pilot pulls the boat away, unaware that a gas-line was still attached and fills the water around the dock with gas when it comes loose. Having lost his nerve, Rayburn is among those running for safety and tries to jump for the ferry, but misses and lands in the water. Elsewhere, Frank points the Hockens to his motorboat and tells them to take it, while he stays behind to continue to get the best shots of the scene, taking a picture of them fleeing to it. As people continue to be massacred, one man uses a flare gun to kill a seagull in the sky. However, the flare falls back down and lands in the water, igniting the gas. Instantly, the harbor is in flames, Rayburn trapped among them, and as Frank keeps snapping pictures, the flames reach the gas tank, touching off a series of explosions that blow up several small structures on the docks and send people who were too close flying, including Frank, who gets blown off his feet. The Hockens then reach the boat and motor away, heading to the nearest shore.

However, when they get close enough, they see that the shore is covered in a bunch of birds as well. They're trapped, and it seems like they're done for when the birds take to the air and start heading towards them. Ted tells May and the girls to get out of the boat, saying that he's going to tip it over and that they should go under and come up underneath it. May and the girls get down into the water, helping her daughters to stay afloat, while Ted rocks the boat back and forth until it finally overturns and he splashes down into the water. May tells Joanna to hold onto her, as they're about to go under, but she ends up slipping off, unbeknownst to her mother. Under the boat, Ted is joined by May and Jill, then realizing that Joanna isn't with them. Ted quickly goes out from under the boat, pops up, takes Joanna, and brings her under the boat with the rest of them. Floating under the boat, they can hear the screeching birds landing on the upside down hull and pecking at it. Ted tells the girls that they're safe, but he's proven wrong when the gulls' and crows' beaks start puncturing through the thin metal. The girls can't help but scream at this and, again, it looks like the family is done for when, like the night before, the birds suddenly break off their attack and leave. Now that it's safe, they all go to the outside and climb up onto the boat, watching as the birds leave. Though they're safe, Ted notes that it looks as if the birds are heading towards the mainland. The movie ends with them floating out there on the water, watching the birds head to the horizon.

The score was done by Ron Ramin, a veteran composer of television, but like the movie itself, the music is just kind of average and very generic. It's the typical type of TV score that tries really hard to either thrill you, excite you, scare you, and tug at your heart strings, but it comes off as overdone and forgettable. There is one piece of the score that I do genuinely like, which is this low-key, relaxing theme that plays when Ted is making sure that the house is secured nice and tight before going downstairs to sit up with Scout and keep the fire going all night long. It sounds very nice, made up of an electronic main piece that's mixed with a soft piano and a melancholy string bit, and it's something that you could see yourself listening to as you're lounging around the house one slow night. Unfortunately, that's all I have to say about the score, as the rest of it is totally forgettable.

While not a good movie by any means, I don't think The Birds II: Land's End is so bad that it warrants being on so many "worst movies of all time" lists. It's not an absolutely horrendous watch that will make you so mad you can't see straight, as it is competently-made, with some occasional instances of inspired filmmaking, the acting is mostly fair, there are a couple of characters you can become interested in, the locations look nice, the bird attacks are filmed in a manner to where you can't tell the difference between the real animals and the fake ones, there's a fair amount of violence and blood for those who need that fix, and the climax is so over-the-top that it's actually kind of entertaining. But, that doesn't change the fact that most of the story is spent on drama involving the family that isn't engaging and is ultimately fixed so easily that it proved pointless, the dilemma involving the mayor is played to ridiculous extremes, the setting isn't as interesting as that of Bodega Bay in the original, there's none of the atmosphere and the feeling of dread that permeated Alfred Hitchcock's movie, the birds are made less of a terrifying force of nature when something of an explanation is given as to why they're attacking, there are some horrendous visual effects involving the birds, and the music score is almost totally bland and forgettable. Rather than awful, it's a movie that simply doesn't need to exist, much like Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho, albeit for very different reasons. Unless you're really curious, just stick with the Hitchcock classic and try to put this flick out of mind.