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The Birds II: Land’s End from Vinegar Syndrome Takes Flight on Blu-ray!

Feature Presentations: Episode 39

Welcome to my column dedicated to the appreciation of physical media supplements called: Feature Presentations. The goal of this column is not to say whether a film is good or bad and worth picking up or not—I would like to highlight the discs that go the extra mile and provide film fans with enough tasty tidbits to satisfy even the hungriest of cinephiles. With all that out of the way, today’s article will focus on Vinegar Syndrome‘s release of The Birds II: Land’s End.

A door with holes pecked into it.

Oh, Vinegar Syndrome. If you’ve read any of my Feature Presentations columns for the releases of Vinegar Syndrome, I’ve mentioned that I am a subscriber to their distribution. As a first-year subscriber, I am experiencing the highs and lows associated with my annual subscription service. My mixed feelings have me apprehensive about renewing my subscription. In one aspect, I am discovering new films that would fly under my radar, and the other is a large number of garbage movies Vinegar Syndrome releases. And I don’t want to disparage any film as a whole—I wholeheartedly feel that every film has merit to someone, but a large quantity of Vinegar Syndrome doesn’t speak to my sensibilities.

And this brings us to the latest episode of Feature Presentations: The Birds II: Land’s End.

Sequelizing any of Alfred Hitchcock’s films immediately puts those in the production behind the eight ball. Not content with attempting to make a good film, there is a cloud that overhangs the movie, which can be challenging to overcome. It’s a double-edged sword and almost not even worth trying. The film will never be given a fair shake and consistently measured against the original.

Or, you make a terrible sequel where audiences and critics come together with the same overall consensus. The Birds II: Land’s End falls into this category.

I distinctly recall The Birds II: Land’s End premiering on Showtime in the mid-’90s. As a kid, my family didn’t make enough money to afford Showtime, but my cable provider offered a free weekend of the channel—coinciding with this film’s premiere. Yay for me, I guess. Even as a kid, I understood The Birds II: Land’s End offered nothing that appealed to me, and almost thirty years later, that feeling still holds true. Revisiting The Birds II: Land’s End comes with bad acting, shoddy production, and a lack of tension, multiple things that sink a film associated with Alfred Hitchcock.

As is customary with Vinegar Syndrome, The Birds II: Land’s End comes with a slipcover featuring newly-commissioned art that is better than this film deserves. The case features a reversible art wrap with the slipcover design on one side and the original production poster on the other.The Hocken Family hides from birds.

Vinegar Syndrome gives plenty of love to The Birds II: Land’s End in the supplemental material portion of this release. The disc includes a feature-length audio commentary track with film historians Amanda Reyes and Sam Pancake. While I’m not a fan of the film, listening to Reyes and Pancake commentary made this release more palatable. Both are fans of the movie; their enthusiasm shines throughout the runtime. While Reyes and Pancake are not discussing the film in the same room, they each bring a fun, conversational approach to The Birds II: Land’s End track. Reyes and Pancake discuss the film’s less-than-respectable reception among the masses, details from the production, and how using the sequel method hindered the movie in retrospect.

The extensive making-of documentary “Don’t Remake Hitchcock Movies” is an almost-hour breakdown of the production with members of the cast and crew. If you’ve seen The Birds II: Land’s End, you know that the director “Alan Smithee.” Anyone familiar what that name knows it’s a pseudonym for a director who removes their name from the film. Understanding the history, I was interested in unearthing what happened with this maligned sequel.

The listing for this documentary promises contributions from the cast and crew. While not misleading, we get a handful of crew members and actress Megan Gallacher. Thankfully, the combination of the participants works well enough to paint a picture of the production. Gallacher has fond memories of working on her first union gig while crew members Kevin Brennan, Craig Edwards, and Jeff Goodwin anchor the behind-the-scenes from a technical perspective. Brennan and Edwards are the standouts as they dictate the production from a boots-on-the-ground perspective. Each person reminisces about the good and the bad from the shoot. While the film doesn’t have an immaculate reception, most walked away with positive experiences overall. Maybe I was expecting more, but understanding that troubled production, the lack of participants for this documentary isn’t surprising.

The next feature, “The Silence of the Birds,” is an interview with the film’s composer, Ron Ramin. Ramin discusses how he came to work in the business, starting with composing for the TV series Fantasy Island, the reasons for his choice of instruments, and working in a “diplomatic” manner between director Rick Rosenthal and the film’s producers. While this interview comes with engaging tidbits, for me, Ramin’s interview came off as slightly defensive and almost as if he was talking down to the viewer. There’s plenty for fans of the film and music aficionados to digest, and while a worthwhile listen, the interview came off a bit cold to me.

The last featurette, “The Locations of The Birds II,” revisits the areas of the film’s production with Craig Edwards. As an off-shoot from Edwards’ interview for “Don’t Remake Hitchcock Movies,” Edwards tours the North Carolina production studio plus exterior locations in and around Wilmington. I’m not the biggest fan of location tours, but “The Locations of The Birds II works well, thanks to Edwards. Edwards has a likable persona and makes for an entertaining guide, recalling moments from the film and specifics around the film’s production, including an intriguing story about actor Muse Watson.

Rounding out the disc is a stills gallery featuring behind-the-scenes photos and images from the finished film.People scatter from an explosion on a pier.

And there you have it! Is The Birds II: Land’s End a second-viewing masterpiece? Not for me. Just because I didn’t enjoy revisiting this sequel doesn’t mean others won’t. Vinegar Syndrome, in my opinion, went above and beyond for a film that didn’t deserve the love it gets on disc. If you’re a fan of The Birds II: Land’s End or are interested in this straight-to-television oddity, this is the only release you’ll want.

Written by Robert Chipman

Robert is a lifelong cinephile and has had an admiration with film for as long as he can remember. When he's not checking out the most recent theatrical release, viewing a movie on one of a 1,000,000,000 streaming services or picking up the latest physical media disc, he's trying and failing to make it in Hollywood as a screenwriter. He also has a weird fascination with Stephen Dorff. Make of that what you will. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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