A small town is attacked by murderous ravens. Why are they attacking humans and how can they be stopped?
Since I really enjoyed Sheldon Wilson's Shallow Ground, which was quite an original and scary flick, I obviously felt the need to check out his new film Kaw, even though it sure sounded a lot like Hitchcock's The Birds. And even though it has obvious things in common with The Birds it's far from a rip-off of any kind so don't let that put you off. On the other hand, what may put you off a bit is that Kaw is not a great film but saying that doesn't mean that it's bad as it is actually about just good enough. What is a great thing though is that they've actually used some real birds here to limit the use of CGI and that's always appreciated and makes films more watchable, problem with the birds though is that they're just not mean enough.
Kaw takes place in a small rural town which makes it cool because the town itself delivers some good atmosphere. Police Chief Wayne Hayborne, (Sean Patrick Flanery), is on his last day of work and wants to move away from the place with his wife when finished on the job. Unlucky for him, bus driver Clyde MacKenzie has a run in with a flock of murderous ravens and when some other victims turn up, Wayne realises that his last day on the force is not gonna end when it was supposed to. There's of course more to the story but I'll leave that for you to find out.
 
What's kinda funny here is that Sean Patrick Flanery is basically playing the exact same character as a small town sheriff as he did in Tobe Hooper's The Damned Thing, the first episode of the 2nd season of Masters of Horror. I gotta admit that I somewhat dig Flanery, he's simply a pretty cool actor but who oftentimes end up starring in just decent type of flicks. He pulls it off here though and most of the actors in Kaw are pretty likable even though there are some that should be sent back to acting school, but hey, we're watching a small budget horror here so it's something you should be used to anyway.
As for blood and gore there are not too much going on here even though some scenes are kinda worth their time. It's in fact the overall film, in its whole that is ok and worth watching; the story's all right, the ravens and kinda fun to watch, Flanery's performance is good and the small town and its folks living there adds a lot of cool atmosphere to the overall picture. Don't expect too much though, but if you got nothing better to do you could definitely do worse than Kaw.
Kaw is a decent horror flick but that actually has little genuine horror to offer, it also reminds a bit of the type of movies that airs on the Sci-Fi Channel but that is slightly better (thank God). Still, it's never boring and even though the storyline won't make you go whoa! it's not completely worthless. Like said before, on todays horror market you could definitely do worse than this. Sheldon Wilson though need to step things up a bit and deliver us another Shallow Ground.
By
Back to Horror Review Archive
|
ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2007
DIRECTOR: Sheldon Wilson
WRITING CREDITS: Benjamin Sztajnkrycer
GENRE: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
CAST: Sean Patrick Flanery, Kristin Booth, Rod Taylor
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 100 min
RATING: 6/10
Kaw Website/IMDB Click here
Kaw Trailer Click here
|
