Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

punisherversion1 Dead Birds: Directed by Alex Turner. Written by Simon Barrett.This movie was a suggestion from a filmmaking friend of mine. Thank you Marcus Kempton. The writer of this film has become partnered recently with filmmaker Adam Wingard who made You're Next, The Guest and the awful Death Note film. This has quite the cast in it especially the fact that most went on to do great things. It is about a group of bandits who steal gold and hole away in an abandoned plantation. This is when things get crazy and weird in a good way. First things first, the production design in this movie is superb. It looks and feels like the time of the Civil War. It was beautifully done. The creature effects are really good and generally unnerving to look at. The acting is excellent across the board. All the actors play their parts well and I felt like they were stuck in this insane situation that kept getting worse. The issue I had with the movie is everything attempting to make the film scary was routine. It had the requisite jump scares. You knew when they were coming and how. You could predict most of the plot down to the minute they were about to do the reveal. Sometimes this isn't such a bad thing. It's all in how the filmmaker handles it. This filmmaker was given a golden opportunity that was a bit squandered. It had moments that were hokey and the horror elements felt out of place until the ending when things were ramped up tenfold. It had an ending that was suppose to shock but honestly doesn't. It is an interesting solid little movie. I give the movie a C.

denis888 I am a Civil War buff. And when I read that Dead Birds is about some Civil War times, I was thrilled. But what a shame this movie turned out to be! So boring that mere 90 minutes drag like all 900 hours. No tension, no real horror, no action. The beginning? seemed to be a real western, but then, when a horror genre crept in, a boredom crept in, too. and in galore quantity. I was deeply bored. Patrick Fugit and Henry Thomas are cool actors, here they are flat and unimpressive. Languid tempo and very very silly hooks make this good beginning very sour and then vapid and bland. I merely made myself watch this long piece of real trash to see the end. Which was another huge failure, too. Sad, but I nearly loathed the time I had wasted on that silly film. My recommendation - not recommended. To anyone. Even for laughs. It is so dead boring that it cannot be funny.

oneguyrambling This has such a basic plot that I'll knock it off straight away so I can spend more time on why this sucks.After some rogue soldiers from the 1800s (1863 so we're told), rob and slaughter some Southern soldiers depositing some cizzash in the local bank. This is the best scene in the movie, although unfortunately it really has next to nothing to do with the rest of the film and takes only 5 minutes. It is quite violent and has a couple of good gory effects.The best part of the 1800s? Crazy facial hair, it seems most of the extras in the town were chosen based upon the length and complexity of their face fuzz, after this scene though none of the primary characters rock much more than carefully trimmed stubble.Right, so the bad guys, 5 guys and one babe go on the run to Mexico, only night falls and they decide to stop off at an abandoned house on the edge of a cornfield. As they are coming to the edge of the cornfield something happens that I still don't really get, they are rushed by a… thing, and one of the guys uses lightning reflexes to blow it away.(Best as I can explain it looks like a smaller version of the Alien : Ripley baby from Alien Resurrection.) The rest of the movie is set over the ensuing night in the old house, and it is so horror cliché that I won't bother explaining it.After this finished I thought that it was an 1800s poor man's version of Event Horizon, a crew are trapped in a confined space, and the scariness that ensues sorta makes them turn on each other.Now a couple days later I think it is more like an alternate version of The Descent, where the first half is an unsettling caving trip gone wrong, but the second half is almost totally different, like a monster movie. Only the first half of Dead Birds is ordinary and the second half totally blows.When you finally learn what the hell just happened it does make sense in a nonsensical way, but you won't care because it is so poorly executed.I thought everything and everyone looked a little too clean in the opening town scene, you know, a clean neck and some strategic streaks of dirt on one cheek. That was a concern, if the filmmaker decides not to bother with an authentic look, maybe they'll be lazy in building suspense and delivering shocks, and let boring horror movie clichés do all the work for them, and they're all here; - A Flashback/Delusion/Dream, call it what you will, is the scariest part of the movie.People jump at shadows and all scares are comprised of something jumping towards camera accompanied by a loud music stab.Someone is missing, let's spread out and look.It is now maybe two nights since I watched Dead Birds, usually I have some scrawled notes with maybe a half page of points and reminders, and I let my memory do the rest, in this case I already can't remember the last two thirds of the film.Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. It's just not that good.If you liked this (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

wes-connors During the U.S. Civil War, a gang of six crooks would rather rob banks than defend the Confederacy. They are: handsome leader Henry Thomas (as William), sensitive brother Patrick Fugit (as Sam), pretty nurse Nicki Aycox (as Annabelle), greedy racist Michael Shannon (as Clyde), scruffy boozer Mark Boone Junior (as Joseph), and sensible ex-slave Isaiah Washington (as Todd). You can expect some conflict between Mr. Shannon and Mr. Washington, of course. Also, Mr. Fugit nicely plays some desire for Ms. Aycox, who is otherwise occupied with Mr. Thomas.The Alabama Civil War setting starts the picture off interestingly, with a blood-splattering western-style shoot-out. After this, it becomes a very different, haunted house horror tale. The story might have worked better if it had been set in the present, making the plantation owner and his family more distinct. Then, "Belle" would be Aycox' ancestor, and so on… We only see one of the "Dead Birds" referred to in the title. Fugit steps on it as the gang of six enter the old dark house - and, watch how it makes his face twitch! The figurative title "Dead Ducks" applies more. Considering the film's intents and purposes, writer Simon Barrett delivers more than delivers the goods, new director Alex Turner and photographer Steve Yedlin give it the creeps, and Peter Lopez' spooky musical score mixes nicely with the atmospheric sound. With a short shooting schedule, and limited budget, the cast and crew make "Dead Birds" fly, if not soar.****** Dead Birds (9/13/04) Alex Turner ~ Henry Thomas, Patrick Fugit, Nicki Aycox, Michael Shannon