The killer bird movie is a one-film genre. The Birds is of course that film, and anything post-The Birds seems rather pointless. Credit is still due for the blatant knock-offs if they’re done well, and Kaw is as good as they get when matched up to Hitchcock’s piece.
Sheldon Wilson (Shallow Ground) directs this homage/rip-off/remake with a fine sense of pacing, tension, and action. Concerning a flock of diseased ravens, Kaw picks up quickly with quick deaths, some false scares, and loads of carefully crafted tension. This is as solid as low budget filmmaking can be.
There’s a sub-story about Mennonites that failed to report the slowly growing deadly flock as their leader believed it was proper punishment for people outside of their community, but this is barely elaborated upon. In the end, all of these scenes are somewhat extraneous, existing solely to give the script a basis for the bird threat's existence.
Unlike many recent Sci-Fi Channel affairs, Kaw is played straight with no leanings towards camp territory. Action is wonderful, and the bird effects well above expectations. There are times when the real birds are hard to distinguish from the ones created by the effects team. The animation nails the movements. A sequence in a corn field with low visibility is close to masterful, if not a little clichéd.
Whether a homage or a classic piece of dumb luck, Rod Taylor, leading man in Hitchcock’s bird thriller, gets a decent role as the small town's doctor. Gore is here in limited form given that a raven can only do so much damage. However, fans of blood and guts get a few nasty shots of flesh being ripped off victim’s bodies and gruesome animal mutilation.
As immensely creepy as bird horror can be when done right (and that’s the case here), the ending comes up unsatisfactory. The final frames of The Birds make the movie the classic that it is, and with Kaw, the audience is left with a typical big explosion that magically erases the problem. It brings down the entire film, though not enough to knock it off the top of the Sci-Fi channel heap of creature features.
Finally, it’s worth noting that while there are plenty of mentions, Kaw is not The Birds. It becomes its own film that simply has an extensive portion of it ripped from the 1963 masterpiece. It’s not so much a blatant rip-off as it is a wonderful low budget homage that deserves more than a standard cable release.
Article comments
1 - Jason
Actually, "Kaw" is not a SCI FI Channel Original Movie; it's an acquired movie made by a third party, hence the film was actually decent. You can always tell when a movie is a SCI FI Original - it's beyond horrible.