A big killer bird from outer space shows up on Earth to eat airplanes in flight and gobble up hot-rodding kids off the road. Bullets and rockets won’t stop it and it’s freakin’ everybody out. For producer Sam Katzman and director Fred F. Sears, this means pulling out the stock footage of people on city streets looking up at the sky with fright and running away. For the characters in the movie trying to build a weapon to shoot the creature down, it means giving us confused 50s B-movie science lessons, about anti-matter and negative particles, that last just long enough for one to run to the theater concession stand for more popcorn before the next action scene of the bird eating parachute men out of the sky or snacking on the Empire State Building.
The bird itself looks like a crazed punk rock turkey. It has bulging eyes, a long gawky neck, and a little mohawk tuft of hair on its head. Even in 1957 the sight of it on screen got laughs, according to some sources.