Review - Kaw

What is the difference between a raven and a crow . . .

A raven weighs about four times what a crow does; a raven has about a foot longer wing span than a crow does; a raven’s wing sometimes makes a “swish, swish” sound while a crow’s approach would be silent. Makes you kinda wonder why they didn’t use crows because in theory there would have been more blood and gore because no one would have heard the crows coming. Add to that the fact that caw is in reality the crows sound - a raven does more of a low and slow croak thing.

But I digress . . . I suppose all in all the ravens were a better choice being that they are often the shape taken by both witches and the Devil himself. So these are evil little birds who are very intelligent and generally unsociable creatures. Then why oh why would they band together to attack humans? Guess you’ll just have to watch the movie to uncover that little gem.

We start out this film in bed with local sheriff Wayne (Sean Patrick Flanery) and his wife Cynthia (Kristin Booth) who are on the cusp of a huge life changing move (isn’t that always when evil birds come out and attack?). Wayne gets a call to a local farm where the farmer is not in such good shape - seems he has been attacked by something. Leaving the scene to his trusty little deputy and the Doc (Rod Taylor) Wayne hops over to his next big emergency of the day. Local drunk and bus driver (good combo if you ask me!), Clyde (Stephen McHattie) has once again annoyed his neighbors by shooting his shotgun off. Wayne is none to thrilled with Clyde’s story of being attacked by birds.

But as we have learned in most horror films to date, you should always listen to the local drunk, or nutcase whatever it is your town has if he/she starts telling crazy stories - that is if you want to make it out alive.

Kaw throws in an interesting Mennonite twist and kept me somewhat engaged throughout most of the film. There was a definitely a decent amount of gore in the film with several scenes of ravens plucking the brains from their unfortunate victims, although I have to admit I was a bit disturbed by the poor doggie scene. Add an annoying teen basketball playing brat, Doris (Ashley Newbrough) to the mix and you’ve just about fleshed out small town USA for a modern day mediocre reproduction of The Birds.

Although certainly nowhere even close to as good as The Birds, Kaw was nonetheless a fairly watchable birds gone mad movie.

Directed by
Sheldon Wilson

Writing credits
(in alphabetical order)
Benjamin Sztajnkrycer

Cast (in credits order)
Sean Patrick Flanery ... Wayne
Rod Taylor ... Doc
Stephen McHattie ... Clyde
Kristin Booth ... Cynthia
Megan Park ... Gretchen
Ashley Newbrough ... Doris
Amanda Brugel ... Emma
John Ralston ... Oskar
Michelle Duquet ... Betty

rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Renessa Blitz
Jefferson Brown ... John
Alexander Conti ... Tyler Whitmore
Sophie Gendron ... Tricia