Killing Birds (1988) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by Tony the Terror ★★★★ 3

  I love this awful Italian horror movie filmed in Louisiana. To me, it will always be Zombie 5: Killing Birdsbecause that’s the title on the Shriek Show dvd box when I first saw this. It has a little to do with zombies although not really enough to make it a true zombie film. It has birds although their relationship to the story is a bit tenuous. Basically these kids are ornithology students searching for a rare bird and then some other angry birds show up at the beginning and end so...

  It’s more or less filmed in a swamp and everybody is sweaty af and it all looks incredibly unpleasant. It has some very Italian kills including a necklace caught…

• Review by Slig001 ★★★ 1

  Killing Birds - better known as Zombi 5, despite being released before Zombi 4 and, naturally, having nothing to do with Zombi 2 or 3; neither of which had anything to do with Zombi (aka Dawn of the Dead) Anyway....this one focuses on a bunch of kids who go off into the middle of nowhere to research a rare bird. It gets off to a good start - a Vietnam war vet returns home to find his girl in bed with another man and proceeds to murder them both, before a bunch of birds peck his eyes out for some reason. Then it grinds to a halt for ages as the characters and main plot are introduced, before descending into…

• Review by belial_carboni ★★★★ 2

  ZOMBI 5: KILLING BIRDS AKA RAPTORS AKA A BRAIN MELT THAT WILL BE FOREVER FELT!

  Man give it up for Zombie 5 wow. I hadn't seen this since I watched my old DVD which was borderline bootleg/VHS quality. Vinegar Syndrome has given this one a shimmery shiny new life damn! And don't get me started on that new artwork that looks like the coolest 70s prog or metal album cover!!!

  Killing Birds is basically the wacky nonsensical La Casa of the Zombi sequels. Basically a mixture of Ghosthouse and Nightmare Weekend mixed with that lofi Italian Zombie debauchery. So the ultimate combo of supernatural shenanigans, ridiculous storylines, amazing practical FX and gore and an onslaught of WTFery that will impregnate…

• Review by CinemaVoid 🏴‍☠️ ★★ 3

  When the hawk made a peaco*ck noise, I knew I was in front of something special. Those birds were method acting.

• Review by Jayson Kennedy ★½ 2

  How do we capture the elusive teen audience and maybe break into the US market? Filmirage asks. Why, how about bird watching college students haunted by ghost zombies? Dammit, that's the ticket! Pack your bags we're headed to Louisiana!

  Robert Vaughn slums it in this yawner even by the crusty standards of Italian schlock's twilight era. The veteran actor ambles about blind in three or four scenes while a dopey group of young nature lovers mull around an abandoned cajun cabin. The quiet spookfest offered is extremely vague, having to do with a temporal loop in the house involving a crime of passion decades prior, or something.

  Superhuman neck-ripping zombies appear sporadically. Angry birds eager for eyeballs constantly roost on…

• Review by Bob McCully ★★★★ 4

  Wow. So little did we know that the Zombie sequels and La Casa sequels were multiplying to create a path towards each other, finally intersecting like the crossing streams of two laser beams to create this massive mind-grinder of a horror flick.

  Opening like a slasher, the direction changes to a group of college kids about to go on a bird search, and then changes again, and again, and again. I honestly cannot explain what the storyline is to you, it's a myriad of jumbled scenes and weirdo doomed house moments.
  What I can explain is this: this is some of the most absurd acting I have ever seen and I want more of it.
  Lara Wendel from Ghosthouse and…

• Review by RCDoom9113 ★★

  I can’t think of a film series more disjointed, if not wholly unconnected, than the Zombi franchise. I mean, maybe the House series? The GhostHouse series? La Casa? Some other supposedly haunted structure series or Italian micro-horror? I mean, seriously, the f*ck is going on with these movies. I’m sure the history of the Zombi films and their non-connectiveness is well documented on this site and other places, but for those unfamiliar I could sum it up as such: The first entry is Zombi 2, there is no first entry unless you count Dawn of the Dead which is, most assuredly, not an actual entry and was just retitled Zombi in Italy. And from there we’re off to the races.…

• Review by Matthias_S ★½ 1

  🎞️👎🤢 Das schlechteste Community-Wochenende aller Zeiten 🤮💩🎬 (16. bis 18.02.2024)
  The Podcast Macabre 2024 Horror Challenge - 5 of 52 (#31 Flying animals)

  I don't know if it was just a problem with the version I watched or if, like with Silent Night, Deadly Night, there was simply no better source material for the few gore scenes, because like there, in my version they looked like they were would only come from a bad VHS, so that you could hardly see anything, even if there was little to see anyway. I really had a lot of fun with Zombie 3 and since there were already zombie birds there I thought I could expect something similar here. Unfortunately, that's far from…

• Review by cherryz ★★★

  May 11: World Migratory Bird Day. Watch a killer bird movie.

  Well I was completely mislead by this title.

  Starts off with a family being killed, and a bird pecking out the killers eyes. Magnificent talon work there.

  Years later these kids are researching a rare bird. Their research takes them to the very house the murders took place in.

  The house is pretty creepy, and is toying, haunting them by messing with their dreams, hallucinations. I did get the Cry Wolf affect here as when the 1st proper researcher gets offed I was waiting for them to wake up. It won me back as the kills are quite smashing, the burning man, head pulled off, the compass man, I mean his friend just watched that slowly happen. I also enjoyed the Frankie goes to Hollywood beat during all the excitement.

• Review by FakeVoorhees ★★★ 2

  I guess it was just wishful thinking that a movie called Zombie 5: Killing Birds would be about zombie birds. Instead, it's about zombies AND birds. Plus, a murderous Vietnam vet, a haunted house and stick figure p*rn. Look, these things don't always have to make sense to entertain. There's some nice gore and a great score. I do wish there had been more of the title killing birds though.

• Review by colin ★★★★ 5

  Killing Birds is a highlight reel of idiotic characters, ridiculous death scenes and Leslie Cummings' unmistakable line delivery.

• Review by Jerry McGlothlin ★½ 2

  Journey Into Darkness x 31 Frenzied Frolics: Day #24

  Totally nonsensical bizarro weirdness from the duo of Claudio Lattanzi and Joe D’Amato. I think it is safe to assume this mess is mostly the work of the former, as it doesn’t have the heightened atmosphere/surreal aura of the latter’s horror flicks. There isno cohesive plot here, like, why are there zombies anyway? Are they the dead family members of the main guy? Are these mystery zombies somehow connected to the birds we see an excessive amount of times? When the film does try to explain itself at the end, things only become less clear than they were before, and I still have no idea what the f*ck I just spend…