Is BIRDEMIC The New Worst Film Of All Time?

Last year around this time my life changed forever when I sat down and finally watched The Room. Tommy Wiseau's torturous journey through the depths of atrocious writing, terrible acting, and unintentional humor left deep, devoted scars within my heart. The film is like a love letter to people who hate living. My friends and I have been basically of the same opinion as anyone else who has ever witnessed The Room: it's the worst film ever made. I felt confident that The Room could never be topped (or bottomed?), as any film that might eventually challenge The Room would need to be so very bad that I was sure I'd never want to see it. Besides, the age of YouTube has taught everyone the basics of creating reasonably competent videos, right? Wrong. In fact, the exact opposite effect is taking place - thanks to YouTube, everyone has access to video equipment and they all think they know what they're doing. So, thanks to this "revolution" in video production, we now have thousands of amateurs producing hideously incompetent garbage that almost passes for a real production. One of these amateurs is James Nguyen, writer and director of the newest Worst Film Ever Made, Birdemic. The awkwardly-titled Birdemic follows the lumbering, embarrassing romance of Rod (Alan Bagh) and Nathalie (Whitney Moore), two upwardly-mobile young people in California. Rod is a successful software salesman, despite having less personality than a broken hard drive. Nathalie is a budding supermodel, although we only see her doing Glamour Shot poses against a blank wall in what appears to be a hotel room. After Rod stalks Nathalie at a restaurant, the two begin an immediate romance, which culminates in a limp sex scene at a hotel. Then the birds attack. Literally half of the film involves the ham-fisted romance between our two leads, who muster up all the chemistry of cold cereal. Ten minutes of the first half of this film involves Rod leaving his house, driving to work, getting stuck in traffic, arriving at work, and walking inside. We see it all. Of course, if Rod was played by someone with some charisma or charm, this might be endurable, but Bagh has the charm of an inflammatory fungal infection. Whether he's driving a car or watching someone get their eyes pecked out by CGI birds, Bagh has the same distant, medicated look of someone born without a brain. I've seen some truly wretched performances over the years, but Bagh's acting here might be the worst thing ever. It's so awful that I'm almost inclined to think it's a joke. But once the birds attack, you're really inclined to think it's a joke. The eagles and vultures that attack our heroes are, quite simply, the worst special effect I've ever seen in my life. Dummy birds bouncing on the end of strings would work better than this. The CGI birds - all exactly the same - barely flap their wings as they remain stationary in the air. They look like animated GIF clip art files pasted over video footage. Occasionally one of the birds will inexplicably crash into something, which sometimes results in an explosion if they touch something flammable like a gas pump. It truly boggles the mind how Nguyen or anyone could ever watch this shit in the editing room and think to themselves, "Yes! That's exactly what I want it to look like!" Bad CGI could be excused, of course, because such effects work is not easy on a small (around $10,000) budget and it is very complex. But nothing can excuse the editing and sound mix, which resembles old VHS home movies. Sound from various takes bleed into one another, occasionally disappearing altogether. Scenes linger awkwardly, actors staring into space as the shot goes on in silence. There are scenes shot on parking lots, beaches, and in cars that are unintelligible thanks to poor sound, which is inexcusable in this Best Buy world. Of course, given the circumstances, no sound is preferable to hearing the conversation taking place. These are the tortures one must endure to finally come to the end of Birdemic, one of the worst finales I've ever imagined. Our heroes, having somehow outrun the flock of ten or so birds that have been attacking them, end up at the beach. Despite the horrors of repeated bird attacks, our heroes decide to catch a fish and cook it on the beach! Of course, the birds show up, forcing our heroes back to the car. Then, the birds decide to leave for no apparent reason. Our heroes stand on the beach as the flock flies out over the ocean (vultures, flying over the ocean ...) for literally ten minutes. Roll credits. It's almost beyond description. The entire film plays out like it was invented by a hyperactive six year old who lives in a bubble. Random events occur, like when our heroes seek shelter in a forest, only to encounter a forest fire (created with CGI less impressive than the graphics of an Atari video game system). There seems to be no rhyme or reason to what happens - it just happens, and then something else happens. Nguyen would have crafted a better screenplay if, on the day of the shoot, the actors just pulled plot points at random out of a hat. Is Birdemic the worst film of all time? It'd better be. This film makes The Room look like Shakespeare, and Mansquito like The Room. If something worse than Birdemic can be genuinely created by anyone, that person should have his/her hands removed, Middle Eastern style. Humanity's reign as the planet's most intelligent species is too tenuous to risk with awful films like Birdemic. Here is the trailer: