Review: Killing Birds (1988)
(aka Zombie 5: Killing Birds)
Directed by: Claudio Lattanzi, Joe D'Amato
Starring: Daniela Barnes, Robert Vaughn, Timothy W. Watts
Written by: Daniele Stroppa, Sheila Goldberg
Music by: Carlo Maria Cordio
Country: Italy
Available on: Blu-ray (Vinegar Syndrome)
IMDb
For a movie titled “Zombie 5: Killing Birds,” which features just a couple of zombies (that are more likely ghosts) and birds that don’t kill a single person, and marketed as the fifth movie in a franchise that doesn’t actually exist, this is much less crazy and/or terrible than you’d expect. That’s not to say it’s standard fare, though.
Killing Birds is about a group of college-aged wannabe ornithologists who take on a project to study a rare, nearly endangered bird. They shack up at the house of a blind Vietnam vet and avid bird-liker who, unbeknownst to them, had slaughtered his wife and parents 20 years earlier after catching his spouse in bed with another man. After the murders, he had his eyes torn out by a falcon he was keeping at the house, which has to make the whole bird-watching thing a lot more difficult. Somehow, even though the authorities showed up to take his newborn son (whose life he spared) into protective custody, no one bothered to arrest the guy and he was just allowed to chill at his house until these college kids come along.
The kiddos only get in a little bit of bird action before strange shit starts happening at the house, with doors opening on their own and odd noises coming from everywhere. Eventually, angry ghost zombies make themselves known and start killing people. Uncredited co-director and Italian genre film giant Joe D’Amato decided to market this as the fifth entry in the fake, loosely related “Zombie” franchises (which also includes George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (released in Italy as Zombi), Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (aka Zombie, Zombie Flesh Eaters), Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei’s Zombi 3 (though about a dozen films were released as Zombi 3 around the same time), and Claudio Fragasso’s After Death). However, the movie has way more in common with another fake, loosely related Italian horror franchise, the “La Casa” films (which include Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead I and II, Umberto Lenzi’s Ghosthouse, Fabrizio Laurenti’s Witchery, and Claudio Fragasso’s Beyond Darkness, as well as a few other flicks from time to time). All of those movies at least feature people holed up in a house battling a supernatural evil of some sort.
But, unexpectedly, Killing Birds is probably the least insane of all the Italian “sequels” I just listed. Its zombies/ghosts are pretty cool-looking, actually, the kills are done well (though there are no guts spilled other than an eyeball pluck near the start), and there are some moments of genuinely spooky atmospherics. Carlo Maria Cordio, one of Italy’s most underrated composers, provides a rollicking score — though it borrows some sounds from about a hundred other horror movies and from his own filmography, no doubt. Yeah, there’s the bad dubbing and the interminable shots of people staring at something scary instead of attempting to escape. There’s a noticeable lull between the opening kills and the first bout of weirdness at the house. I would have appreciate a bit more of the ol’ “what the fuck?” you expect from Italian horror.
But, as long as tell yourself ahead of time that there will be no goddamn zombies and there will be no goddamn killer birds, you’ll probably have a fairly good time with this flick. Our murderous vet states early on, when he first meets the college cadre, “I meant to frighten you, and I’m glad I did.” Well, I wouldn’t go that far, big guy, but the attempt is appreciated. This movie could have been so much lazier than it is.
Overall rating: 5 out of 10
