KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

bmurf-39449 OK, I admit, the effects were pretty well done. The music - pretty darn good. The way this was shot however, was somewhat similar to a TV series, not as cinematic as I hoped. The thing that REALLY stood out to me was how brightly lit everyone was in every scene. Think of a large house in the middle of a corn field at night with no electricity...it would be super dark and a lantern would only light several feet from where you hold it. If you pay attention, there's light brightening up a room just below the camera at floor level in every interior shot, there are artificial lights put behind objects and so obviously in shadowed areas, it was extremely distracting to me and if this were lit better, it would have totally changed the look and feel. If a set is lit well, you can't tell, that's the trick of it all. Even in the corn field during the rain storm, it looks like all the actors have a set of car headlights on them...crazy.

morrison-dylan-fan With having kept an eye out for Horror Western titles since viewing the excellent Spaghetti Horror Western God Said To Cain,I was caught by surprise,when a fellow IMDber sent me a Horror Western film,which led to me looking up to the sky to see the deadly birds of prey.The plot:Alabama:1863-After successfully robbing a bank,a group of outlaws start travelling to their safe house .Whilst heading to the location,the outlaws kill a strange demonic-looking creature,which suddenly rushes out of a corn field.Reaching the safe house,the outlaws get set to put their feet up for the night,and head off with their winnings in the morning.As night starts to set in,the outlaws begin to fear that there are about to lose all their winnings to an unknown force.View on the film:Attempting to combine the Horror and Western genres,the screenplay by Simon Barrett initially strikes a fine balance of crossing a mysterious Horror atmosphere,with tough,gritty Western gunshots.Casting moments across the film which appear to be aiming for a huge payoff, (such as the killing of a child)Barrett struggles to keep a grip on the elements,with the horror side of things sliding from an ill-defined curse,to demonic monsters which people can walk past normally without a care in the world one moment,and then get completely terrified by the next.Along with the flawed horror delivery, Barrett fails to expand on each outlaws initial reaction to the robbery,which leads to each of the outlaws lacking distinctive features,and largely being interchangeable.Transforming an old plantation house (which was not a set,but an actual location) into an old dark house,director Alex Turner (not the lead singer of The Arctic Monkeys!) wraps the location in pelts of rain and a deadly cloak of darkness.Sadly Turner burns out the movies sense of an unknown evil,by openly showing the demonic creature,in broad daylight within the first 5 minutes of the title.Along with giving away the identity of the mysterious evil far too early,Turner also uses Peter Lopez score repeatedly to cover up a real lack of tension-building,as Turner turns the scores sound level from quiet to deafeningly loud to wrap around everything from a poorly-designed ritual killing, (which can't decide if it's a killing or the rising of a demon) to darken corridors whose shadows contain very little fear for viewers of these dead birds.

DigitalRevenantX7 Story Synopsis: Fairhope, Alabama in the year 1863. A group of army deserters rob a bank, causing a bloodbath that takes the lives of several people, including a young child. Fleeing from the authorities, the gang decide to take refuge at an abandoned farmhouse that was recommended by a now-dead soldier. As they stay in for the night, a mysterious & malevolent ghostly presence begins to pick off the robbers one by one. With tensions in the group rising, the remaining robbers must battle not only the demonic entities but their own prejudices in order to survive.Film Analysis: If you ever wondered what on Earth happened to child star Henry Thomas, star of E.T. – The Extraterrestrial, consider your question well & truly answered. His return to the film industry after a long hiatus should have been celebrated, given his iconic status.Dead Birds is a ghost story set during the American Civil War (for international readers who don't know, this war occurred when the USA split in two over a dispute stemming from the US government's attempts to abolish slavery), where the heroes of the piece are a band of army deserters (& a nurse) decide to improve their lot by robbing a bank & fleeing to Mexico with the loot. If only they decided to change their transit hideout instead of staying at a haunted farmhouse…The film, despite a creepy opening credits sequence, never takes the viewer by the throat – instead opting for a relatively subtle atmospheric approach. This should have worked well with this film were it not for the fact that the script needed some revising. Until the climax arrives, all we get are a bunch of ghostly apparitions (with some pointless CGI work done to their faces that looks very silly) & the gang's mistrust of each other leading to their downfall.The reason behind the ghostly phenomena is not explained until you reach the very end & even then you don't get the full picture. Instead you start to put the pieces together after the film ends, with each piece of information making sense once you re-watch the film (the human-looking scarecrow, the footprints that change shape, the demonic ghost children). The only part that doesn't fit is the skinned creature that appears when the bandits reach the farmhouse. As it is, the film doesn't quite fulfil the requirements needed for an entertaining horror film. Dead Birds instead makes an interesting but ultimately pointless haunted house tale.On the acting front, everyone gives a serviceable performance. Henry Thomas, despite being forever associated with his iconic role as Elliot in E.T., actually makes a good actor in his adulthood, even if he is never given much room to work in.

Woodyanders 1863, Alabama. A motley group of thieves rob a bank and seek refuge in an old abandoned house that's haunted by angry and lethal demonic spirits. Will any of them survive the night? Director Alex Turner, working from an original, intriguing and unpredictable script by Simon Barrett, relates the arresting story at a slow, yet steady pace, does a sterling job of creating and sustaining a deeply spooky and unsettling mood which becomes more increasingly eerie and upsetting as the story unfolds, offers a flavorsome evocation of the period setting, stages the shock scenes with considerable skill and flair, and punctuates the narrative with startling moments of grisly violence. This film further benefits from fine acting from the sturdy cast: Henry Thomas as levelheaded leader William, Patrick Fugit as the soft Sam, Nicki Aycox as the fetching Annabelle, Michael Shannon as treacherous troublemaker Clyde, Mark Boone Junior as the scraggly Joseph, and Isaah Washington as the proud Todd. Muse Watson has a chilling minor role as an evil occultist. The grotesque creatures are genuinely freaky and scary. The special effects are excellent and convincing. This picture earns bonus points for its admirably hard and gritty no-nonsense tone: The gradual build-up and powerful sense of dread and unease culminate in a positively harrowing last third that's capped off by a perfectly grim surprise downbeat ending. Steve Yedlin's polished cinematography and Peter Lopez's shivery score are up on the money sound and effective. But what really makes this movie so good and commendable is a welcome and invigorating element of freshness and creativity: The story isn't cut and dried, there's a compelling ambiguity evident throughout, and the neat theme about greed and mistrust bringing about the thieves' ruination gives the picture some extra substance. Offbeat, inspired, and well worth seeing.