Birdemic 2: The Resurrection is a 2013 American "romantic thriller" horror film written and directed by James Nguyen. It is the sequel to the infamous Birdemic: Shock and Terror, and was notably shot and released in 3D.
Four years after the events of the first film, an indie filmmaker named Bill is planning on making a movie which will be financed by Rod, one of the protagonists of the first film. Bill meets a girl in a restaurant, and he persuades her to audition for the lead role in the movie along with the other returning protagonist, Rod's girlfriend Nathalie, who now wants to be an actress, despite the first film establishing her as having a very successful modeling career with Victoria's Secret.
Birds then proceed to attack them because of global warming.
Birdemic 2 distinguishes itself from other sequels to famous So Bad, It's Good films by attempting to feature self-referential humor about the reception of the original, in some cases doubling down on criticized aspects of the original by recreating them in even more bizarre manners, for an intended tongue-in-cheek effect. Whether or not that effect works is up to the viewer.
A tie-in video game for the film was released in October 2012. The cast and director also toured several cities in America and Europe showing the film in independent cinemas, but also made it available for download at the official website
of Birdemic.
A third Birdemic film, Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle, premiered at Fantastic Fest in September 2022 before being released on streaming platforms in January 2023.
This film provides examples of:
- Acting Unnatural:
- Rod still can't walk convincingly and anytime he's not supposed to be doing anything in particular, he stands way too still.
- Bill (Thomas Favaloro) intentionally grins and laughs like an idiot during the entire film, even mugging at Whitney Moore to get her to laugh (she did). Reportedly, he wanted to see how much he could get away with (the answer: everything.)
- Action Girl: Nathalie sure does show off her fancy gun work and punching abilities against those birds!
- Alliterative Name: The "giant jumbo jellyfish", which is never referred to as anything else.
- All Men Are Perverts:
- Bill always seems to focus on how Gloria is beautiful before saying she's talented. Also, he's clearly looking at her ass when they first meet.
- The same probably goes for the executives who can't comprehend a script not having topless women and sex scenes.
- Artistic License – Film Production: Bill says that Vertigo and Citizen Kane were produced independently. They weren't. In fact, RKO tried its best to destroy every reel of Kane.
- Ascended Fridge Horror: This movie reveals that the little girl Susan actually died from eating the unprepared fish Rod cooked in the first movie. (Except she'd refused to eat it.)
- Author Appeal: Yep, there's more on global warming.
- Nguyen's strange obsession with Tippi Hedren returns, though at least this time it's just limited to a shot of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Apparently he tried to get an actual cameo out of her for this movie instead of just Stock Footage, but it didn't work out.
- Nguyen's other obsession with blonde female romantic interests returns, to the point of making Gloria's actress bleach her hair for the role.note
- Author Avatar: The suspiciously-familiar Asian screenwriter who spends half the movie talking about his dream to make a movie about killer birds attacking Hollywood.The film abruptly ends when he dies. Bill talks about directing a film called Replica (2005) with a hot actress, which (at the time) he never finished or released.
- Beta Couple: Nathalie and Rod are this in the sequel, compared to Gloria and Bill. Then it kind of flip-flops in the second half, due to Rod and Nathalie knowing so much more about the birds and more or less leading.
- The Bus Came Back: Just about every survivor except for Susan makes a return in this movie.
- Call-Back:
- The music over the credits (and a couple minutes after) is "Hangin' Out with My Family" from the first movie.
- Nguyen's non-Birdemic films, Julie and Jack and Replica, both get Call Backs.
- The Cameo:
- Nathalie's mom, Tony, the Woody Harrelson-looking tree hugger and Dr. Jones from the first movie make brief appearances.
- Sam Hyde, Nick Rochefort, and Charls Carrol of comedy troupe MDE make a quick cameo as beachgoers.
- Canon Discontinuity: It's claimed the little girl died from eating uncooked fish and seaweed in the first film, but... she and the boy both refused to eat it and demanded a Happy Meal from McDonald's.
- Cerebus Retcon: Despite not actually eating the meal in question in the last film, Susan's fate was retconned to have died of disease sometime after the first movie from the fish Rod prepared. The reason for this line is that Nyguen asked that the actor who played Tony, Colton Osborne, to adlib a line into the Museum Scene detailing her whereabouts.
- Clueless Aesop: Early on, Bill delivers a speech about how famous directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles were able to create all-time masterpieces because they were able to work independently without studio oversight. While it's certainly true that many a potentially decent film has been ruined by Executive Meddling, it's also true that many infamously bad films have ended up that way because their creators had zero oversight from people who might have been able to prevent them making major creative mis-steps. The argument is further undermined by the slight fact that both this film and its prequel just happen to fall into that category.
- Composite Character: In addition to being an obvious expy for Nathalie, Gloria also fills the role of the restaurant waitress who Rod briefly spoke to at the start of the first film.
- Denser and Wackier: While the first film tried to be a serious horror story, this film goes for a campier tone with comedic moments and poking fun at the premise.
- Department of Redundancy Department: A frequent problem with the script.Rod: "You know, the last time I saw you was at your Sundance premiere, Four Seasons - which, by the way, swept Sundance. [...] I'm still amazed that Four Seasons did so well and won all those awards at Sundance."Bill: "Some of Hollywood's greatest films were indies [...] cause they were produced independently."
- Drop Dead Gorgeous: Three topless actresses are killed by the birds thanks to the protagonists' hopeless skill with firearms. The guys bother checking the pulses on them, exclaiming "she's dead!" every time, just so there can be gratuitous close-ups of the half-naked corpses.
- Everyone Loves Blondes:
- Like Rod and Nathalie, Bill likes Gloria, who's also a blonde, and Will is implied to like Jessica who is also a blonde.
- Subverted with Gloria's actress as she had to dye her hair, which was originally brown, for the role.
- Executive Meddling : In-universe, when Bill takes his movie script to a couple of studio execs, who then ask where all the topless chicks, sex scenes, fight scenes, blood and guts are (ultimately subverted when they hesitantly accept the script anyway.)
- Failure Hero: The second half consists of the main characters wandering around, looking for people to save, and failing to save anyone they find (even the one person they actually "save" just dies later.) Hell, at one point they walk into a silent theater, see a bunch of people under attack by birds, and then just leave without even trying to save them.
- Fanservice: Gloria in her underwear. Also the scene where the topless women are acting for a film before being killed by the birds.
- Functional Genre Savvy: Rod knows all about zombies and how they spread infections, despite it being his first encounter with the undead.
- Gaia's Vengeance: This time, not only has global warming caused murderous prehistoric birds to attack, but also a Zombie Apocalypse and angry cavemen.
- Happily Adopted: Tony, the boy from the first film, was adopted by Rod and Nathalie.
- He's Dead, Jim: This happens a lot.
- Lampshade Hanging: This happens a lot, with the film being much more self-aware than the first, almost like it is a parody of itself. One example is when Rod asks Nathile for a gun, and she points out that Rod is a terrible shot; likely to explain how in both Birdemic films, the characters are barely able to hit a large number of birds at point blank range.
- Leave the Camera Running: Like the first movie, there are many scenes where the shot just lingers for a long time for no real reason with nothing happening.
- No Ending: The scriptwriter dies and the birds fly away. Kind of doubles as a Downer Ending too, as the first one ended on the hope of a better future and the survivors being saved; this one just ends after a death and everyone looking sad (or bored, it's hard to tell which).
- Primitive Clubs: Rick's resurrected caveman ancestor carries around a large bone which he uses as a club. He spends the movie either having sex with his girlfriend or attacking the protagonists with the club.
- Product Placement: Here and there, but one hilariously inept example stands out when the characters approach a Pepsi machine and somehow manage to get pretty much every brand of soda but Pepsi.
- Random Events Plot: The second half comes off as this, as they don't seem to be going anywhere specific, they just keep going place to place.
- Rule of Cool: Throwing punches and fancy round-house kicks during a bird attack.
- Serial Escalation: Done in the most awkward way possible with zombies and cavemen attacking.
- Shout-Out:
- Rod's walk through the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the beginning of the film appears to be one to the beginning of Sunset Boulevard of all things. According to
Word of God, the overly-long walking intro is actually supposed to be a reference to Saturday Night Fever, and the red rain that kicks off the bird/zombie attack is a reference to Re-Animator. Uh...okay? - One sequence takes place on the set of Amity Island.
- Rod's walk through the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the beginning of the film appears to be one to the beginning of Sunset Boulevard of all things. According to
- Space Whale Aesop: If you film an explotative nude scene for a film, poorly animated birds will kill you.
- Stealth Parody:
- A possible point — the Space Whale Aesop seems to be mocked by including zombies.
- And this from the website:
There’s romance, horror, awkward sex, deadly birds, zombies & giant jumbo jelly fish. - Strictly Formula: Guy meets girl. Girl falls for guy's creepy advances in record time. Guy and girl meet Natahlie's mom, and then have partially-clothed sex in a motel. Then birds attack because global warming. Everyone just wanders around without accomplishing much excepting getting in bird fights and dying, and then the movie kind of just ends.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Susan apparently died of a disease from eating the fish in the first film. Which is odd, because she (along with Tony) refused to eat it, and if they did eat it, why didn't they all get the disease?
- Too Dumb to Live:
- The only person the main cast manages to rescue is a cowgirl who's trapped in a house because she forgot how to open a door. Unsurprisingly, she dies later in a zombie attack.
- The characters also end up in a zoo that, surprisingly, isn't under attack by the birds, because the zookeeper understands why they're attacking (it's global warming.) They decide to leave this killer bird-free safe haven anyway, even getting attacked (and one of them killed) the second they leave.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Nathalie in between the two films.
- Rod certainly tries to fit this bill, his actor even trained for the filming of this movie.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The trailer shows that zombies are in this film, and semi-gives away that the scriptwriter dies.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The sky is raining blood! Birds are attacking! And a few groups of people in a park... notice nothing, as Nguyen still tries guerrilla filmmaking and doesn't clear passerby from shots.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Tony goes unaccounted for during the bird attack. Odd considering that Rod and Nathalie are supposed to be looking after him.
- For that matter, whatever happened to the entire bird apocalypse from the first movie? Only the characters from the first movie even seem to remember that it happened.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The same rain that creates the killer birds makes the dead rise from a cemetery.
"Maybe it's global warming!"
