If only EVERY romantic melodrama shifted gears halfway through and became a horror movie about killer birds trying to eat out everyone’s eyeballs for no reason. The world might be a better place. This movie has a reputation for being one of Hitchcock’s lighter affairs—and it is. It doesn’t have a villain with an intricate plan. It has no secrets to be revealed. There are no clues or trails to follow. It gives you very little to argue about afterward except for how strange it is. Hitchcock got away with murder with Psycho, subverting expectations for maximum shock and suspense. He gave audiences a few things that Hollywood conventional wisdom said that they DIDN’T want. The result of that was a massive hit and a cultural touchstone that still means something today. With The Birds, I think he wanted to go further. Make a film that not only switches genres midway through, but that switches to an all but diametrically opposed genre. Why? No reason, except that it sounds like fun and Hitchcock is going to do it WELL. If this isn’t one of his great ones, it’s a primo specimen of his perversity.
Also, it deserves serious credit (or blame) for helping to invent the modern zombie movie. By 1962, films about nature gone nutzoid were common, but in literally ALL of those movies one of the main characters is a scientist who eventually figures out the cause of the problem and invents a means to fix it. The Birds flies against all of that. Hitchcock takes pains to show us that none of the main characters in this film know half a lump of shit about birds. His characters are a rich girl with a serious ego on her, a lawyer who’s half-playboy and half-momma’s boy, a pampered old matriarch and a kid. The only thing on their minds is survival. Also, how to board up a window effectively and quietly sneak past the monster.
George Romero had to have taken at least few notes.