Thursday, October 22, 2015

Night of the Seagulls (1975)

October Challenge Day 22:

When I saw the word "Seagulls" and images of zombies on the cover of this movie, I chuckled. Then the memory of my watching The Birds at an unusually young age and promptly noticing the little seagull sculpture on my grandparent's front porch - this suddenly menacing sculpture had a Blood Looking Dot on it's beak - came right back.

Birds are nothing to mess with.

I stopped chuckling and immediately made my way to the checkout desk.


This is a damn fine horror movie.

Surprisingly fine.

You may not know this at first. What we have here is a small army of blood thirsty zombies from the Knights Templar, looking for virgin sacrifices. 

Ladies, if you're not out "parading" yourself around town and being killed by one psycho, then you're playing by all the "rules" and being killed by a bunch of psychos.


Based on the premise alone, I could not take this film seriously. Then I started watching the film and I was all like, "I see where this is going and I like it..."

This is a smart horror film. I particularly like the super slam on zealous religious followings. Here I thought I was going to see a film about a group of people throwing their hands in the air and screaming about the supernatural chaos, instead I saw a couple of scientists tackling backwards logic with some sensible, mental kung fu moves. 

I'm not sure if it's good or bad that this surprised me.

The soundtrack is rather amazing, and the writing and story line is particularly sharp and poignant. I was not expecting this based on my rash first impressions. That said, this movie can work very nicely as some Mystery Science Theater-like fun! I'm not sure how this movie pulled it off but you can make fun of it OR not and still really enjoy the film. It's rather genius, really.

This is a great film, folks. And a great film to enjoy with others - especially those who enjoy horror movies of all types. In all, and quite simply put: this is a very enjoyable  film. Also, the zombies are pretty awesome!

Pairs with anything you can find in a small dry goods store. If the shop keeper could give you the stink eye then all the better. Fish as the main course then dramatically spill some red wine on the front of your white shirt and make a big deal about it all night.

I rented this movie from my local video store. Use the links under Find It. Watch It. on Horror Habit's side bar to locate where else you can find this alarming feature.


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