The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Nature’s Revenge relates to a body of films that came out principally in the 1970s around the same time as the growth of Environmentalism movement. In these films, nature, usually in the form of animals and insects, would turn against humanity.
The cause given was usually that humanity had polluted or destroyed the native habitat of the animals, sometimes it was because the animals had mutated, or else no explanation would be given. In all cases, the outlook for humanity was not a positive one. The progenitor of these films was The Birds (1963).
Most of the entries here are listed under Animals Attack Films or others under Bugs or Plantlife – although it should not noted that not all the entries listed under these are Nature’s Revenge films.
Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film inspired a series of Nature’s Revenge films throughout the 1970s. Expectedly, Hitchcock creates masterful set-pieces but the most effective thing the film does is to remove explanations creating a work of anxious uncertainty
Excellent Australian-made Nature’s Revenge film with a couple on a weekend at a beach at siege from nature. Like the film’s obvious model The Birds, the attack occurs for never-specified reasons
Unique anthology that offers 26 episodes from different directors, each ending with a death. The episodes vary wildly in quality but a sufficient number ignore all good taste and/or travel waaaay across taboo lines
Classic film from the 1970s Nature’s Revenge fad with a group gathered for a party on an island finding that flora and fauna all around has become malevolent and turned against humanity
Pointless remake of the cult Australian Nature’s Revenge film. This takes place amid some gorgeously shot natural scenery, is very faithful to the first film but seems to entirely miss the paranoid tone
A cheap 1970s Nature’s Revenge film that blatantly borrows all the essentials of The Birds in the story of a group of trampers in the High Sierras coming under attack by wildlife due to an ozone hole.
TV movie that does nothing to dispel the dictum that there has never been any such thing as a good killer bee film. As always, the effects let the show down and the rest of the piece is slow going and talky
This was made as a quickie cash-in on Irwin Allen’s big-budgeted bomb The Swarm. Cheap effects and ridiculous plotting cause it to topple well over into bad movie stakes
Birdemic was a cult bad movie – incredibly, despite the better budget that must have come his way, James Nguyen has gone and made the same thing filled with laughably flat dialogue and the worst effects ever seen on screen
At one point, Birdemic had a bad movie cult that rivalled The Room. Whether we asked for it or not, this is a third film in the series. James Nguyen seems to think everybody has come for a lecture about Global Warming.
The new contender for the Worst Film Ever Made, this fully lives up to its reputation, full of astounding technical ineptitudes, bad acting and hilarious one-liners. A blatant ripoff of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds