If you recall from my review of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, I made the bold claim that it was the worst attempt at a horror film or any form of cinema that I have witnessed - a statement I still strongly stand by to this day. However, when I discovered that there was a sequel available, naturally my curiosity got the better of me. Not overly curious though, as it's taken almost seven months to work up the courage to put myself through this once more. So, if you’re reading this after watching the first, I’d definitely be curious to know why you’d ever come back for more? Much like the first one, we have to endure an incredibly long opening title credits sequence, only this Time instead of a car aimlessly driving down the road, we have a yet to be named character aimlessly walking the streets of Hollywood. Seriously, this scene went on for a total of 5 minutes and 27 seconds and just like the first, this is something that is used over and over again to pad an already short film. With a total run time of just 1 hour and 18 minutes, I have to assume 80 percent of this is filler scenes. One of the more painfully difficult ones is a 10 minute long dance scene featuring our main cast and some very questionable moves. The acting is barely (and I really mean barely) an improvement on the first. As well as the dreadful recurring cast members from the first, we are introduced to a set of new characters to make you feel just as uncomfortable as your did when you first encountered this franchise. These two new characters, Bill and Gloria, played by Tomas Favaloro and Chelsea Turnbo have the exact same story arc that Rod and Natalie played by Alan Bagh and Whitney Moore have from part one. Genuinely, it’s almost scene for scene. The only one recurring character I was happy to see return was Natalie's mum played by Patsy Van Ettinger, she is not only the strongest actor in this, but the original too. This installment does seem to have more of a purpose serving plot narrative, with the surviving member of the first Rod financing his friend Bill's low budget Hollywood film production. A film called 'Sunset Dreams', I say this as the film makes it incredibly difficult for you to forget, it is mentions in every other scene. However, once the birds come into play things do take a slightly less coherent direction. This includes a reanimated caveman couple, the sky raining blood and zombies of all things. Thankfully though, our survivors have managed to modify their guns with a cheat code providing them with unlimited ammunition and even find the time to hammer home their own catchphrase "they're dead" - This is the "evil dies tonight" of the Birdemic franchise. The CGI in this is taken to a whole new level of dreadful. Surprisingly enough, this is not contained to birds this time around. We see one of the worst computer generated Jellyfish I have witnessed along with a really unnecessary CGI ambulance. If you can't afford to use an ambulance for your film then just don't do that scene. Pairing these intertwining scenes with the budget and rights issue this film has, such as set location restrictions, permission from people in the backdrops face, car number plates and even the billboards we see in the foreground. Instead of seeking the appropriate permission, the way this film chooses to get over these obstacles is by literally just blurring it all out of focus, looking extremely messy and like a crime scene recreation you would more commonly see on the news. As expected, the birds are just as bad as before, only this time we do have more species of birds and a slightly flight and death variation to their pattern. Overall, if you have seen the first this is just more of the same, with the added ability to now be able to spit acid at their victims (trust me this sounds much cooler on paper). It's obvious that the cast have no sense of direction when it comes to choreography during the fighting scenes. They are all just randomly punching and kicking the air with the assumption that someone will cleverly add it in in post-production. That is not the case this has a very untalented effects team. The best example of this is a scene featuring an attack on a cinema full of people. If you look closely enough through the sea of people wildly swinging into the air, there are a people laughing at the stupidity they are witnessing and participating in. Whilst having its fair share of unintentional moments of humour this is equally just as poorly executed as the first. I did find myself having more fun with this installment, but I think that is based soley on the fact that I knew what I was getting myself in for this time around. With a third currently in post-production, involving the surviving cast members and the same director, it unfortunately looks like my Birdemic days are far from over.
1/2
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