Put The Birds on Netflix

I wanted to watch Hitchcock’s Birds last night

but I couldn’t find it on any streaming sites.

Sure, I could’ve just rented it online for $15

but that’s a lot of money to spend on a movie from 58 years ago.

When it first released, tickets to the theater itself

were only 70 cents. That’s it. 70 cents.

People went out at night, got scared, and went home.

All for less than a single dollar, imagine that!

70 cents went a long way back in the sixties.

Maybe grab a double decker hamburger,

fries, a salad, and ice cream,

more than a basic meal for less than a buck.

Three gallons of gas, twenty postage stamps, four quarts of milk,

a pound of sirloin steak, two dozen eggs, fourteen Hershey’s bars,

three boxes of Pillsbury cake mix, a six pack of beer,

seven copies of a magazine, or a pack of one hundred aspirin.

Aspirin wore the crown, “the miracle drug” they said,

before Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen committed regicide.

Either way, movie goers likely needed something

to help them after they watched Hitchcock’s Birds.

The next day they might wake before their alarm clock,

to the sounds of squawking outside the window.

Perhaps, they’d dash to the window to tear open the curtains,

and see three plump crows staring back.

They’ll slam the windows shut, pull the curtains closed,

and shut out all of the natural light in the home.

They’ll leap back in bed and hide under the covers. 

They’re prepared for this, they watched the movie.

They know they must stay still, they mustn’t move an inch

or else the crows will creep closer and closer

until they peck and scratch at the windows

and when the glass shatters, they’ll know their eyes are next.

They won’t move, not for days and days,

maybe never again. Maybe they died there.

Maybe the crows flew off after the racket at the window,

maybe they’re just normal birds after all.

“Normal” birds can still peck and claw humans though,

it’s not like the movie was created from nothing.

The sooty shearwater siege on Capitola, California

inspired Hitchcock’s fable of foul-playing fowl.

Residents awoke to the sound of slamming bodies

on their roofs and through their windows.

Feathers fell from the morning sky like rain

pairing well with the thundering sound of flightless carcasses.

Apparently the flock ate a bad batch of anchovies,

needed a place to land and regurgitate the fish,

and most of them did not stick the landing.

But this doesn't mean that every bird is harmless.

A barred owl murdered a man’s wife in cold blood

and then the evil avian framed him for the crime.

The owls struck again in 2011, when the victim

fell down the stairs whilst escaping a scalping.

Yet again, people die and the owls fly free.

Birds can't really be put on trial for commiting a crime.

Unless of course you count the little pet bird

that the Dutch police arrested for shoplifting.

In terms of flocks of Hitchcock’s nasty nestlings,

none of the criminals were brought to justice.

They scratched and bit and inspired a fear of birds

in viewers that will be passed down for generations.

Imagine that entire experience for less than a buck.

Sounds like a steal to me, maybe even for 15.

As all things go though, the newer Birdemic,

is widely available, so I watched that instead.

About the Author

Ryan Hiemenz is a Junior Media and Communications major with a minor in Creative Writing. He works for many different publications on and around Arcadia University, both writing and editing in various styles. This year, he is the president of Arcadia's English Honors Society, Sigma Tau Delta. More personally, he is a huge fan of all things horror, spending much of his free time watching, reading, and writing things from the genre. Over the summer, he even self published a horror poetry chapbook called Fearing Fiction, and he loves to build on the stories in that book!