Editorials
Never Forget: ’The Birds II: Land’s End’ Was the Original ‘Angry Birds 2’
It’s always frustrating when a new film completely overshadows an original, to the extent that people no longer know that it exists.
I am, of course, not speaking of Angry Birds 2, which has made headlines for getting the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of any video game movie ever made (so far), and which has apparently outshined the (surprisingly successful) original Angry Birds film.
Instead, I refer to Alan Smithee’s The Birds II: Land’s End, which was – if nothing else – the original Angry Birds 2, and a film which most people don’t seem to remember ever existed.
Yes, Virginia, there was a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, and yes, Virginia, there’s a very good reason why we don’t talk about it very much.
The original horror classic The Birds came out in 1963 and starred Tippi Hedren, in her motion picture debut, as Melanie Daniels, a celebutante who follows an attractive lawyer to his hometown of Bodega Bay with the intent of wooing him. But what could have been a romantic weekend turns unexpectedly and inexplicably deadly, after all the birds in town start attacking every human being in sight.
The Birds featured remarkable visual effects for the era and, in a very experimental move for a mainstream Hollywood picture, it had no score whatsoever (although Bernard Herrmann, who composed the scores for many of Hitchcock’s most famous films, including Psycho, consulted on the sound design). Another of the movie’s many subversions of the Hollywood norm was the ending, in which the birds are not stopped, the reason for their deadly rampage is never given, and the screen doesn’t even give the audience the finality of a “The End” credit. The horror apparently just continues, forever and ever. It’s chilling.
And, of course, it left plenty of room for a follow-up. It just happened to take 31 years to get made. In 1994, The Birds II: Land’s End premiered on Showtime to overwhelmingly negative reviews, and watching it today it’s easy to see why.
It’s really, really, really… not good.
The Birds II stars Brad Johnson (Flight of the Intruder) and Chelsea Field (Death Spa) as Ted and Mary Hocken, a married couple recovering from the death of their son in a car accident. They have two young daughters, a dog who steals whole turkeys off the table, and a completely inert sex life. They have rented a house in the fishing community of Gull Island so he can finish writing his biology thesis. To help make the ends meet over the summer, Mary takes a job training a famous photographer, Frank (James Naughton, Cat’s Eye), how to do complex computing tasks like not moving his mouse too fast. There’s a scene in which learning that takes him a really long time. It’s not the movie’s highlight.
Meanwhile, birds start doing all kinds of evil bird stuff like pecking out the eyes of innocent bystanders and waging war on kids’ bedrooms. Unlike the original movie, which took place over just a few days, The Birds II: Land’s End takes place over an entire summer, which has several effects on the storyline. For one thing, it makes the whole film less suspenseful because it literally takes weeks for the tension to ramp up. For another, it gives the characters a lot more time to idly postulate about what’s really going on, and for the town’s know-nothing mayor to argue that he doesn’t care if the birds really are attacking or if the sea really is polluted; all he cares about is keeping the island’s fishing industry afloat.
So after about half a film of a boring couple not having sex and being unsure of themselves, The Birds II finally settles into a half-hearted Jaws riff. At least the film’s third act, when the birds start really outdoing themselves, features some fine feathered carnage. The birds attack a lighthouse at night, which leads to genuinely dramatic images, and eventually, they dive-bomb the entire community as the citizens try to flee to the mainland. The bit where a guy shoots a flare at a bird, which then plummets on fire into a gas spill in the ocean, which then blows up every damned thing in sight, is charmingly goofy.
The Birds II is neither horrifying nor suspenseful nor even “so bad it’s good.” It’s just pretty bad. The film was directed by Rick Rosenthal, the director of the original Halloween 2, and he had his name taken off the project and replaced with “Alan Smithee” (formerly the go-to fake name for directors who didn’t want to be associated with a project anymore). And that’s really saying something. After all, Rosenthal KEPT his name on Halloween: Resurrection.
But even stranger is the fact that The Birds II: Land’s End features a supporting performance by Tippi Hedren herself, as the proprietor of a local convenience store. Her character, Helen, is obviously not the same person she played in the original film, but The Birds II does treat her appearance like a meta-joke since she’s one of the only people on the island who takes the bird strikes seriously, as though she knows something everyone else doesn’t. (Hedren would later say, reportedly, that the film “embarrasses me horribly.”)
If you actually want to see this thing, good luck. The Birds II: Land’s End doesn’t seem to be much of a priority in the home video world. It’s not readily available for streaming and Region 1 DVDs aren’t really a thing, although VHS copies were produced and they aren’t exactly in high demand, so they can be found online relatively easily. There was a time when The Birds II was released to some fanfare, if only for its novelty value, but now that it’s hardly ever re-run on cable and all but buried in every other distribution format, you’d be forgiven for having no idea this damned movie even existed at all.
But it does exist, and if nothing else can be said about it (which is probably true), it does have some very, very angry birds… too.
Editorials
‘Bloodstone: Subspecies II’ Revisited: A Bigger, Bolder Follow-Up to Full Moon’s Vampire Cult Classic
Horror sequels are a peculiar thing. In most cases, follow-ups to scary movies tend to retread the same formula with different victims and more over-the-top scares. This is because audiences tend to be more interested in the antagonists of these pictures than anything else, with even main characters becoming disposable when the time comes to produce a sequel.
That’s why some of the most memorable horror sequels are the ones that actually manage to hold onto interesting survivors from previous films while also pushing the story forward instead of having the same thing happen again to a different group of people. From Scream 2 to Dream Warriors (and arguably even The Exorcist III: Legion), there are quite a few of these innovative sequels to go around.
However, if there’s one franchise that deserves more attention when discussing bigger and better continuations that make the most of episodic filmmaking, it has to be Ted Nicolaou’s Subspecies.
The Full Moon classic spawned an indie horror icon, but bizarre sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II is even more beloved than its predecessor.
Building a Bigger Vampire Saga
While the film itself takes place almost immediately after the events of the first movie, Bloodstone only entered production a couple of years after the release of the original as both Charles Band and Nicolaou weighed the pros and cons of returning to Romania to continue the series. In an effort to maximize efficiency, the team decided to invest in a trilogy where parts II and III, now fully written by Nicolaou, would be filmed simultaneously over the course of a single grueling shoot.
Much like the first Subspecies, Bloodstone’s low budget meant that the filmmakers once again had to cut corners and re-use as many of their resources as possible. Thankfully, the process was much easier this time around as Nicolaou, with the help of Romanian cinematographer Vlad Paunescu and his wife Oana, became more acquainted with local customs and made new friends. Shooting abroad still came with its own unique set of challenges due to a lack of translators and the occasional safety concerns, but the crew managed to make things work by filming things guerrilla-style and setting up shop in abandoned caves and real medieval ruins.
The director’s newfound contacts, coupled with the relative success of the first movie, meant that he was basically given free rein over an assortment of shooting locations usually considered off-limits for indie horror. That’s why Bloodstone features insanely ambitious lighting and effects work even during scenes shot in the middle of a bustling Bucharest. The filmmakers went so far as to project Radu’s Nosferatu-like shadows over local monuments as if he were a Romanian boogeyman, an idea that was actually encouraged by local cinephiles.
In fact, many of the more elaborate scenes here had originally been planned for the first movie before being discarded due to the lack of available resources. It was only with the support of Romanian fans and filmmakers that Bloodstone was able to give Radu a chance to be even more menacing the second time around.
Michelle’s Transformation Takes Center Stage
However, when it came to the American part of the crew, not everyone was able or willing to return for another round of Romanian adventuring. That’s why Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) is unceremoniously killed off at the beginning of the film while the role of Michelle had to be recast. Denice Duff took over for Laura Mae Tate, with the character now being joined by her sister, Rebecca, played by Melanie Shatner (yes, that Shatner).
In the finished film, we follow Michelle as she awakens to her new life as a vampire and discovers that Radu has murdered her lover. Struggling with grief and her newfound bloodlust, Michelle contacts her sister overseas, with Rebecca soon travelling to Romania on an ill-advised rescue mission. Meanwhile, Radu (Anders Hove) reaches out to his undead Mummy (Pamela Gordon, underneath heavy layers of impressive makeup effects) and promises to deliver her the coveted Bloodstone artifact while also making Michelle his eternal consort.
Revisiting the movie, I was impressed with how introspective this story is when compared to the original. The sequel assumes that you’re already familiar with the previously established characters, so the story wastes no time in exploring the immediate aftermath of the previous film’s events. From Michelle’s reluctant transformation into a creature of the night to Radu’s obvious mommy issues, Nicolaou is way more interested in pushing these characters into new and uncharted territory rather than recycling existing plot points.
Practical Effects and Gothic Atmosphere Still Impress
Yet, much like the first film, it’s Romania itself that makes the movie worth watching. The ruins of Castle Vladislav are even more majestic now, and visiting the moody streets of Bucharest with its surprisingly punk-rock nightlife made for a nice change of pace when compared to the original film’s quiet village setting. Once again, the abundance of interesting locations makes the movie feel much more expensive than it really is, with the filmmakers surrounding our characters with a living, breathing environment that would be impossible to recreate in a studio.
The increased freedom also allowed Nicolaou to flex his filmmaking muscles and tackle more ambitious blocking/composition in the sequel. The low budget and tropey script mean that the visuals don’t always work, but it’s consistently clear that this neo-expressionist style could only come from a passionate team attempting to pay homage to the shadowy horror classics of yesteryear. If the retro atmosphere isn’t enough for you, there’s enough practical gore here to satisfy even the most demanding of horror hounds!
Radu himself is also far more interesting now that Hove is more comfortable working alongside an international crew, with the actor having gone on record explaining that, while he spent more time drinking vodka than working while shooting the first movie, the sequel was a much more creatively satisfying experience for everyone involved. The character’s relationship with his abusive Mummy is also a highlight of the expanded mythology, especially since the practical effects that bring her to life are just as freaky now as they were back in ’93.
My only real gripe with the horror elements of the picture comes from the glaring absence of the diminutive stop-motion minions from the first film, though I guess the surprisingly entertaining addition of Professor Popescu (Michael Denish) and his archeological antics mostly make up for that.
Bloodstone: Subspecies II is obviously the middle chapter of a trilogy, with the ending feeling a lot less definitive than its predecessor as several plot threads are left to dangle in the wind, but I appreciate how the flick explores new ground while remaining faithful to nearly all the ideas that made the original such a good time. While I don’t think it’s as big of an improvement over the first movie as some fans make it out to be, Bloodstone is definitely worth revisiting if you’re a fan of old-fashioned vampire yarns.
Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion to this initial trilogy, Bloodlust: Subspecies III!
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