Birds I'm Glad Don't Exist

Birds are great! They are pleasing to they eye, elegant, and fun to watch. But some birds can have quite the opposite reaction!

Like this bird for example:

Don't worry though, this picture is photoshopped, birds don't usually have teeth.
If you thought this bird is scary, wait till you see this next one!

The fabled dragon. Personally, its the scariest bird I can think of, and couldn't be happier that it doesn't exist. I remember watching Reign of Fire (2002) and being scared half to death thinking about how much it would suck if dragons really existed. It was one of my first encounters with a dragon on the big screen and man was it a powerful one.

How To Train Your Dragon (2010) was a much more kid friendly dragon movie that tried to break the mold of dragons being terrifying and put a delightful twist on it. The movie focused around a boy who befriends a dragon only to realize that dragons have been sorely mistaken and are actually very nice.
Although the movie does a great job in helping the audience sympathize for dragons, I still think the world would be a lot worse of a place if they actually existed.

Birds: An Under Utilized Scare Tactic In Film

"A parrot walks into a bar and asks for a scotch on the rocks, after knocking back the drink, he ask for the same again. This is also downed in one gulp, and he points his wing at the empty glass. This time the barman ask for some payment, to which the parrot replies - put it on my bill"

If you didn't find that funny, then you probably don't enjoy birds. 

Congratulations, you fall into the 85% of American's who don't enjoy birds as well. To most, birds are a nuisance, inferior vertebrate that poop all over everything and ruin crops. The worst part about birds is that they are in a way, "above" us, soaring over us in places that we can't reach without the aid planes, or jetpacks, or even ladders. This fear of inadequacy hunts us to our core, and it is this exact fear that has produced some of the scariest movies in Hollywood.

The Birds (1963)

Alfred Hitchcock 

A perfect example of the aeronautical capabilities of birds combined with a human's natural fear of birds. Alfred Hitchcock was able to capitalize on this fear in his film The Birds. A film about a wealthy San Francisco socialite who goes to pursue a potential boyfriend to a small town in Northern California when things take a bizarre turn after birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.

Pterodactyl (2005)

Mark L. Lester

Another prime example of being spooked by birds. Mark L. Lester takes things to a whole new level when he introduces the Pterodactyl, the scariest kind of bird, to the silver screen. Nothing is scarier than a bird that eats meat, especially a BIG bird. Lester sends shivers up his audiences' spine with this horror about a dormant volcano deep in the Turkish forest that holds within it a deadly secret, that being a perfectly preserved nest of pterodactyl eggs ready to hatch

Both movies pushed the boundaries of horror and what it means to truly be scared. To this day, I am still waiting for the next Pterodactyl, a chance for me to really be taken out of my element, a chance to be chilled to the bone.

Why Do I Continue Watching These?

Last night before I went to bed I decided to watch a movie on Netflix. So I began looking through Netflix and came across a documentary called "Ghost Adventures". I love watching paranormal type films, but to be completely honest with you I get pretty freaked out after watching these movies. I have to sleep with some lights on and face towards the room because I am scared that I will be attacked or a ghost will find me. I then began thinking why the hell do I still watch these types of movies even though I get scared each and ever time. 

So I figured out why I continue to watch them. I found Psychologist Dr. Glenn D. Walters who identifies three primary factors of the horror film allure.

The first is tension – created through mystery, suspense, gore, terror, or shock. This is pretty straight forward elements of horror, the craft and technique of filmmaking.

The second factor is relevance. In order for a horror film to be seen, it has to be relevant to potential viewers. This relevance can take the form of universal relevance – capturing the universal fear of things like death and the unknown, it can take on cultural relevance dealing with societal issues. Audiences can find subgroup relevance – groups like teenagers which many horror films are about. Lastly, there’s personal relevance – either in a way that identifies with the protagonist or in a way that condemns the antagonists or victims to their ultimate fate.

The last factor, which may be the most counter intuitive is unrealism. Despite the graphic nature of recent horror films, we all know at some level that what we are watching is not real. Perhaps its because when we walk into a theater we know what we’re seeing on screen is fabricated reality. Movies are edited from multiple camera angles with soundtracks and sometimes horror is tempered. 

So I am now I am off to watch another scary movie alone in the dark! :)