Most of the recent horror movies that I've seen have been so dismal that Dead Birds gets a slightly favorable review just for not being awful, despite the fact that it's not particularly scary.The setting and time period were refreshing and the build-up and pacing of the movie were enjoyable. However, once the full story behind the haunted plantation is revealed, it was disappointingly generic. I only paid about $3 for Dead Birds, and I suppose that it's worth that price and a hour and a half of the average horror fan's life. You won't hate it, but a few months from now you won't really remember what the movie was about.And yes, there was a dead bird in the movie, but what's with the name?

Very highly underrated by the few people who saw it, unheard of to the rest of the world...While I think this was, in fact, a pretty good movie, I think the reason it's underrated is partially because it doesn't scare the hell out of you at any point, as some people may have expected. I think this was intended to simply be creepy, not a screamer. A lot of time is (effectively) spent on developing the atmosphere, but on top of this, there are a few very strange happenings to keep you watching and interested. The pace is slow, but it should be. I just think that all of the people who don't like this movie should give it a second chance.

With having kept an eye out for Horror Western titles since viewing the excellent Spaghetti Horror Western God Said To Cain,I was caught by surprise,when a fellow IMDber sent me a Horror Western film,which led to me looking up to the sky to see the deadly birds of prey.The plot:Alabama:1863-After successfully robbing a bank,a group of outlaws start travelling to their safe house .Whilst heading to the location,the outlaws kill a strange demonic-looking creature,which suddenly rushes out of a corn field.Reaching the safe house,the outlaws get set to put their feet up for the night,and head off with their winnings in the morning.As night starts to set in,the outlaws begin to fear that there are about to lose all their winnings to an unknown force.View on the film:Attempting to combine the Horror and Western genres,the screenplay by Simon Barrett initially strikes a fine balance of crossing a mysterious Horror atmosphere,with tough,gritty Western gunshots.Casting moments across the film which appear to be aiming for a huge payoff, (such as the killing of a child)Barrett struggles to keep a grip on the elements,with the horror side of things sliding from an ill-defined curse,to demonic monsters which people can walk past normally without a care in the world one moment,and then get completely terrified by the next.Along with the flawed horror delivery, Barrett fails to expand on each outlaws initial reaction to the robbery,which leads to each of the outlaws lacking distinctive features,and largely being interchangeable.Transforming an old plantation house (which was not a set,but an actual location) into an old dark house,director Alex Turner (not the lead singer of The Arctic Monkeys!) wraps the location in pelts of rain and a deadly cloak of darkness.Sadly Turner burns out the movies sense of an unknown evil,by openly showing the demonic creature,in broad daylight within the first 5 minutes of the title.Along with giving away the identity of the mysterious evil far too early,Turner also uses Peter Lopez score repeatedly to cover up a real lack of tension-building,as Turner turns the scores sound level from quiet to deafeningly loud to wrap around everything from a poorly-designed ritual killing, (which can't decide if it's a killing or the rising of a demon) to darken corridors whose shadows contain very little fear for viewers of these dead birds.

1863, Alabama. A motley group of thieves rob a bank and seek refuge in an old abandoned house that's haunted by angry and lethal demonic spirits. Will any of them survive the night? Director Alex Turner, working from an original, intriguing and unpredictable script by Simon Barrett, relates the arresting story at a slow, yet steady pace, does a sterling job of creating and sustaining a deeply spooky and unsettling mood which becomes more increasingly eerie and upsetting as the story unfolds, offers a flavorsome evocation of the period setting, stages the shock scenes with considerable skill and flair, and punctuates the narrative with startling moments of grisly violence. This film further benefits from fine acting from the sturdy cast: Henry Thomas as levelheaded leader William, Patrick Fugit as the soft Sam, Nicki Aycox as the fetching Annabelle, Michael Shannon as treacherous troublemaker Clyde, Mark Boone Junior as the scraggly Joseph, and Isaah Washington as the proud Todd. Muse Watson has a chilling minor role as an evil occultist. The grotesque creatures are genuinely freaky and scary. The special effects are excellent and convincing. This picture earns bonus points for its admirably hard and gritty no-nonsense tone: The gradual build-up and powerful sense of dread and unease culminate in a positively harrowing last third that's capped off by a perfectly grim surprise downbeat ending. Steve Yedlin's polished cinematography and Peter Lopez's shivery score are up on the money sound and effective. But what really makes this movie so good and commendable is a welcome and invigorating element of freshness and creativity: The story isn't cut and dried, there's a compelling ambiguity evident throughout, and the neat theme about greed and mistrust bringing about the thieves' ruination gives the picture some extra substance. Offbeat, inspired, and well worth seeing.