Wow – I completely missed this one from 2004. Dead Birds is a ghostly gore-fest about Confederate deserters who rob a bank in Alabama and hole-up on a haunted plantation. I’m watching it now on Showtime. It features E.T.’s pal Henry Thomas as the gang’s leader. The casting of the now notorious Isaiah Washington (later of Grey’s Anatomy) as one of its members will surely set some folks off – but keep in mind we’re talking bank robbers here, not soldiers.
I’ve seen worse flicks.
Harry Smeltzer
Bull Runnings 
Harry,
I caught this one on one of the numerous Showtime channels last night. I thought it was an interesting idea but one that failed to truly deliver in the end. I absolutely LOVE horror films, so I’ve seen quite a few over the years. Vague endings to me are sometimes scarier than when you know what happened, but Dead Birds just didn’t quite get it right. I’d give it a 5/10, about what IMDB has it at.
On another note, the main actress in the movie looked REALLY familiar to me. I checked, and sure enough, she was one of the cheerleaders in Jeepers Creepers II (a truly crappy film and not nearly as good as the original, which I liked). She also played the demon Meg in Supernatural, a show that I’ve really grown to like over its first three seasons. Thanks for the info that it was playing on Showtime. I probably wouldn’t have caught it otherwise.
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Brett,
The film did seem to lose focus. It was an interesting concept, though. The CW angle was not central – this could have been the same movie with a cast of high schoolers. But it didn’t wrap up well, and was very uneven. But as I said, it’s not the worst movie I’ve seen…not even the worst CW movie. But on many levels Gods and Generals was much more frightening.
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I rented it a few years ago after seeing a very positive write-up in one of the major horror magazines (Rue Morgue or Fangoria), but, like Brett, was a bit disappointed overall [I would give it 5-6/10]. Better than average, and the “making of” short film on the dvd was still better than G&Gs.
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Harry,
LOL. That’s unfortunately a true statement about Gods and Generals.
Drew,
I may have to go ahead and pick this one up from Deep Discount DVD when they run one of their massive sales. It can probably be had for less than $7.
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Brett,
A few weeks ago I saw it at a store for $4, strangely the packaging was of the “pirated import” level of quality. I may go back and get it anyway.
Speaking of G&G, I can hardly believe the high rating (6.0/10) it has on imdb. 6’s or above are reliably good movies on that most wonderful of all websites. System failed there.
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