Harmless or Hurtful?
The Birds (1963) is about a woman who visits the town of Bodega Bay, only to find out that the local birds have become malicious and have started to attack people. The birds have never been an issue until she showed up, so the town turns against her, only to have the birds attack her towards the end of the film.
In horror films, the “emotions of the audience are supposed to mirror those of the positive human characters” (Baguette & Drumin, 2011, p. #55). “The characters’ responses counsel us that the appropriate reactions to the monsters in question comprise shuddering, nausea, shrinking, paralysis, screaming, and revulsion” (p. #55). Horror films also have a “genuine fears that even a momentary end of being is a horror
…show more content…
The characters also fit the horror genre, because whenever the birds attack, they have the appropriate response to monsters from horror films, they scream, shudder, and run away. Being attacked by birds is not a very common death, so most people can’t even imagine what being murdered by birds is like. The Birds creates a new standard for the genre, because in most horror films, the audience doesn’t physically see the killer, however in The Birds, the audience physically sees and watches the birds peck and attack innocent people.
To begin with, the opening scene is a remarkable example of the characteristics of the character’s responses in horror films. “The characters’ responses counsel us that the appropriate reactions to the monsters in question comprise shuddering, nausea, shrinking, paralysis, screaming, and revulsion” (p. #55), and in this scene, Melanie Daniels walks down the street and is about to enter a pet store, when she looks up at the sky and sees a whole flock of birds swarming the sky. The camera goes back to her, and her face shows emotions of shock, and she stops as if she’s too scared to