[8.1/10] *The Birds* didn’t have to be a horror movie. For the first half, it isn’t really. There’s a few unnerving elements. A canary flutters around a pet shop in San Francisco. A seagull draws blood from our protagonist on her boat ride back to Bodega Bay. Flocks of our fine feathered friends gather ominously in the sky. The signs are there, especially if you know what to look for.

But in the initial forty-five minutes or so, the film is a down-to-earth character drama. There isn’t much in the way of threats or stakes. Instead, there is only the interpersonal tangle of a sly, well-heeled prankster pulling a fast one on a lawyer who sees through her tricks, of a local schoolteacher who still mourns the one who got away, of a widow in pain whose lost her husband and fears losing her husband along with it.

This is an Alfred Hitchcock film, so of course there is still that air of tension, that sense that something is amiss, the fear that whatever tranquility exists among these domestic squabbles will soon be punctured by something larger than life. And it will, of course.

Yet, what’s so striking about *The Birds* is that you can imagine another version of it, one that omits the avian terror, and instead leans into the complex web of attachments and concerns that emerges between newspaper heiress, Melanie Daniels; coastal schoolteacher, Annie Hayworth, her ex, San Fran criminal defense attorney, Mitch Brenner; his widowed and empty nest-fearing mother, Lydial and his bold but eventually traumatized little sister, Cathy. And it would be none the lesser.

I think that’s what gets forgotten about Hitchcock’s filmography. He is, indeed, a master of suspense. But those terrifying happenings have so much power because the characters at the center of them feel so real. The way they bounce off one another, while stylized, carries the element of truth. So while Melanie bluffs her way into a game of oneupsmanship with Mitch, the way Mitch sees through her fibs and knows how to give as good as he gets, the way Annie sees Melanie walking down the same path she did, the way Lydia fears this gossip column regular stealing her son away from her, the way Cathy takes a nigh-instant shine to this self-possessed potential sister-in-law, all add a lived-in human element to the proceedings, so that when the birds start attacking, they’re attacking three-dimensional characters whose loves and losses are worth caring about, not just cardboard cutouts there to be torn apart in the next big set piece.

I’m a particular fan of the back-and-forth between Melanie and Mitch. Melanie is clever, manipulative even, but has a quiet heart of gold despite the pranks that earn her some opprobrium from Mitch’s mom. And Mitch knows how to return fire, goading her into fibbing mistakes that expose her harmless minor attempted cons. Their banter is engaging; their chemistry off the charts, which helps sell a romance that goes from five miles per hour to forty-five MPH in about twenty minutes.

It helps that Annie is a force to be reckoned with in her own right. In a lesser film, she would merely be a Baxter, some superficial impediment to Mitch and Melanie getting together. Instead, she has a knowing disposition when it comes to the family dynamics of the Brenners, a genuine devotion to Cathy, and a selfless, resourceful air in managing her pupils in the midst of an attack that no one knows how to handle.

The secret star of the show, however, is Jessica Tandy as Lydia, the matriarch of the Brenner family. She has the biggest arc of anyone in the picture, going from a skeptical mother figure, doubtful of her son’s apparent choice in romantic partners, to one who comes to see the value, sincerity, and even love within and for her prospective daughter-in-law. From the subtle expressions of dismay as Melanie is welcomed (or inadvertently insinuates herself) into the Brenners life, to the frantic horror after she discovers a neighbor pecked to death by the malevolent birds, to the wordless terror she conveys when trapped in a home with their feathered antagonists on a tear, no one is asked to do more than her, and she hits every note with flying colors.

To that end, in a film full of trademark Hitchcock suspense, disturbing spectacle, and plenty of sequences to chill the viewer, the most disquieting scene in the whole movie may very well be a quiet, dialogue-heavy moment where Lydia admits how hard it is to go on without her partner. The notion of being robbed of the person who gave you strength, of finding the gumption to get out of bed each morning, only to remember, to your horror, that the reason behind it is long gone, is harrowing in a way even the most fearsome of airborne invaders cannot match.

In short, there is a profound, gripping, human element to this story, one I didn’t expect in a film whose legacy lies in its feathery frights rather than its kitchen sink drama.

Those frights are good though! Part of what makes the film work is the way Hitchcock lets those down-to-earth scenes breathe, while something unnerving builds and builds in the background. *The Birds* engages with the quotidian parts of life, from extended discussions with post office clerks to the mundanities of placing telephone calls. As these normal parts of life proceed unabated, something sinister builds in the background, of creatures unmoored from the usual rhythms of life who start getting bolder and scarier as the film progresses. The movie has a clear and steady sense of escalation, one that makes the ultimate attacks from these possessed flocks as cathartic as it is terrifying.

In truth, some of those attack scenes fall flat. It’s incumbent upon any audience member to take classic films as we find them. Situating them in the appropriate era, with the right context, the right limitations, is key to appreciating films of earlier eras for what they are, rather than slating them for what they aren’t. But to modern eyes, it’s hard not to chuckle at some conspicuous green-screening, especially in the scenes where the schoolchildren are assaulted by their avian attackers, which seems that much more obvious with modern high definition screens. Likewise, while likely groundbreaking for its time, the electronic bird screeches sound more comical than disturbing when it comes to *The Birds*’ sound design.

Despite those gripes, some parts of the movie remain as terrifying as ever. The scene where a group of sparrows swarms into the Brenners’ house through the chimney is panic-inducing in the best way. The set piece captures a sense of chaos amid this primal force exerting its will.

In similar terms, the diner debate turned avian apocalypse is masterful. As with the earlier scenes, Hitchcock and screenwriter Evan Hunter aren't afraid to go slice of life in an elevated horror film. The questions of whether Melanie is telling the truth about the ornithological air raid, the number and nature of birds, the end of the world, the scared children eating their supper and their protective mom, all crumple in the face of a swooping seagull strike that gives way to a gasoline explosion that turns into the utter tumult of a simultaneous swarm from above. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more terrifying bout of chaos on celluloid than the telescoping terror of man’s security running aground on mother nature’s children reasserting themselves in dramatic form.

The zenith of the film’s gloriously horrific spectacle, however, comes in the birds’ attack on the Brenner home. Part of me wants to credit *The Birds* as one of the greatest zombie movies of all time. The film anticipates *Night of the Living Dead*, with its sense of determined and/or petrified human beings straining to keep themselves safe from a lurking and penetrating enemy, while holed up in a humble home for protection. The simple threats, of birds bloodying hands meant to seal shutters, of pecks through doors meant to be barriers, of wordless terror as a found family huddles together amid an unfathomable and unbelievable danger, all chill the audience as much as the players.

Hitchcock and director of photography Robert Burks do their usual best. A power outage prompts unnerving lighting in the midst of this grave threat. Low angled shots underscore the sense of something off and wrong about the situation. And various tableaus and sharp shifts in the camera give the viewer a clear sense of the geography of the situation, and where the main characters stand in relation to one another, literally and figuratively. At the same time, editor George Tomasini knows how to let long dialogue-heavy scenes breathe without interrupting them, while creating the tense of terrible energy and chaotic danger via increasingly sharp cuts when the birds are attacking. As you expect with a Hitchcock production, the craft on display is impeccable.

And yet, while much of the second half of the film gives way toward the horrific spectacle, as the audience might have suspected, what stands out in *The Birds*’ final reel is the human element. In a writerly but revealing scene at Cathy’s birthday party, Melanie softly laments having been abandoned by her mother as child, missing that maternal love that others take for granted. And in multiple scenes, the film illustrates how Lydia fears her son marrying, out of a concern that it will mean losing him, not gaining another daughter.

Only, through this crisis, the two are forged together. Melanie goes the extra mile, and faces considerable risk, to protect young Cathy. Lydia confides in Melanie, witnessing how she faces a bone-chilling risk to defend this family against an unimaginable threat. Mitch is a fine and necessary part of the movie, bonding with Melanie in playful terms and acting as the first line of defense against the titular terrors in the movie’s big sequences. But in some ways, he’s besides the point.

It is, in the closing moments, a soft and meaningful embrace between Melanie and Lydia, that really stirs the drink in *The Birds*. These two women, who regard one another as impediments or even threats, find themselves graciously bound to one another through seeing who one another really is in the throes of horrific hardship. The film delivers on the tension and spectacle that Hitchcock was known for. But even to the end, it doesn’t forget that achingly human element, that always elevated the legend’s best works beyond mere suspense, into heartrending drama.