The Birds (1963)

    The Birds (1963) is a horror/thriller, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It's writers are Daphne Du Maurier (wrote the story), and Evan Hunter (wrote the screenplay). It's stars are Rod Taylor, Tippi Hendren, and Suzanne Pleshette.
    The film stars off with a rich jobless woman who chases a man she has an attraction for into a small town in Northern California. This town seems to be the main target of wild birds that have unexplicably started attacking people - the external threat in this thriller is nature.
  The film has many of the characteristics that make it a thriller.
  It has key action scenes: mainly the attacks on people such as the attack during the children's party and the attack during the cafe scene. However there are other tense moments in the film such as the end scene where they have to carefully get away from the birds, who are all surrounding them.

     The film has resourceful heroes - this is demonstrated in the house scene, where the house is under attack - the door was being slowly worn down by the birds, so Mitch nailed a clock onto the door so that the birds would have more to peck through.
  There is plenty of suspense in the films - this is usually before the birds attack though, however the scene at the end of the film is full of suspense, but doesn't end in an attack as the heroes have to walk through the sea of birds in order to get to the car and get Melanie to the hospital.
  The scene where Tippi Hendren is fully attacked by birds took around a week to shoot as it was difficult to pull off. Birds were even attacked to her clothes with nylon strings to make sure they couldn't get away. At one point she was even injured by a bird in the film.
  Hitchcock's films usually end with "The end" - this film doesn't do that because Hitchcock wanted to give the audience a feeling of unending terror.
  On leaving the UK's premiere of the film at the Odeon, Leicester Square, London, the leaving audience were greeted with the screeching of birds that was played through loudspeakers.
  Another thing to note was the lack of a proper musical score - the film's tension was more built up through the silence, which left the audience consistently wondering when the next attack would arrive.
   The film's MacGuffin is the birds' inexplicable actions - it is not found out why they attacked, and why it was centred around that town specifically.