The title pretty much says it all in this distinctly Hitchcockian mix of petty social gamesmanship and an abrupt, all-encompassing existential threat. That being the killer birds, obviously, which dive in from nowhere to ruthlessly head-hunt the poor denizens of a sleepy marine village in northern California.

It sounds like an odd mix, but it in practice... well, okay, it is an odd mix. The film's sudden about-face, from a slow moving game of flirty pranks to a breakneck avian assault, is disruptive and awkward, its pace a whiplashed tug-of-war between monotonous waits and unannounced bursts of frenzy. I like the metaphorical idea behind it, a pontification on natural catastrophes and how quickly they lead polite society to break down, but didn't enjoy much of the experience itself.

In many ways, it's a precursor to the glut of disaster movies that flooded cinemas in the following decade: one central menace, easy enough to boil down to a single word, which sends everybody scurrying in a desperate, improvised bid for survival. The effects are glaringly bad, too, bad enough to, more than once, completely pull me out of the moment with a snicker or a snort. The last big scare scene, however, is all sound and tension, and works so much better for its restraint and subtlety, putting the more garish, visceral preceding shots to shame by leaning on a few wild-eyed close-ups. I can see what Hitchcock was shooting for, but I don't think he got there.