Nigel P Middletown, a small Salem-like location in the sleety cold shadow of winter is excellently conveyed – full of tiny, welcoming local shops and diners and a community tainted by an increasing onslaught of vengeful ravens. Essentially, the story is just a series of set-pieces for the well-staged killings to occur, and is no less enjoyable for that. The ravens have fed on the carcasses of cows that have died from mad cow disease (a fact covered up by local Amish farmers in a bid, they hope, to continue their farming) – the results are similar to those in Hitchcock's 'The Birds (1960)'. CGI provides much of the avian group action, spliced unobtrusively with real birds for close-ups of the growing clusters. The effects never lapse into the cartoon-like spectacle some CGI is guilty of, although the attacks in greater numbers is less successfully visualised than the less ambitious charges.The residents and their lives are intelligently scripted (very rarely lapsing into the illogical behaviour often employed by characters to further the tension) and very well played throughout. Sheldon Wilson's direction keeps things interesting – visually, many scenes are strikingly framed by the black-feathered birds as they gather. Only the weather hampers the production – clearly, this is filmed during fluctuating snow storms; as such, show and frost is more prevalent in some scenes than others, sometimes in a very short time-frame.As the death-toll mounts, there is a convincing sense of growing loss of control over the epidemic, and all deaths are accompanied by the flapping of black, oily wings. Well established characters die, providing an emotional jolt. Perhaps the idea of incensed ravens hurling rocks through the windows of a bus load of people is a step too far, although in fairness, the idea sounds more ridiculous than it actually appears.I always try to enter into these wonderful horror films with little or no preconceptions. This occasionally leads to watching a series of clunkers, but some unknown gems too. 'Kaw' doesn't attempt to change the face of horror, but it ticks all the right boxes and provides a highly cohesive and enjoyable whole.

abominablebro This was a pleasantly enjoyable movie. I, like most people who saw the previews, expected it to just by a lame rip-off of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. I was so wrong, in fact, I thought this movie was actually BETTER than The Birds. I thought the title Kaw was very creative and yet subtle. Unlike in The Birds, in Kaw there was actually a reason that the birds were all there. And it made good sense scientifically. The acting was all very well performed and the plot kept getting better and more intense the further along in the film. Also there was an actor in Kaw that was in The Birds, so I thought that was a neat little fun fact about the movie. Well I thought this movie was awesome and would recommend it to horror fans, but not to bird watchers.

sddavis63 So it's a bit of a rip-off of Hitchcock's "The Birds." That's the first thing that comes to mind to anyone who has watched both movies. And, yes, Hitchcock was better at building suspense in that classic than Sheldon Wilson is in this one. I wouldn't argue either point. However, I still found "Kaw" to be somewhat interesting, and even if the plot was largely unoriginal it had enough twists in it to make it worth watching - including an explanation for the violent behaviour of the ravens, which is something that Hitchcock's movie didn't try - whether offering an explanation is better than just leaving everything as a mystery is, I suppose, a matter of individual taste.I wasn't really familiar with anyone in the cast, with the exception of Stephen McHattie, who I recently saw in "Pontypool." I thought his performance here as the bus driver Clyde was better than his work in "Pontypool." The action here starts pretty quickly; there's not a lot of time spent on introductory material or character development, which was good for this kind of movie. There were some problems with the plot revolving largely around the portrayal of the Old Order Mennonites, who didn't seem authentic to me, although the closed nature of the community was an important and well used plot point. (One might ask where the "community" is since only one Mennonite family is shown.) This isn't as graphic as some horror movies might be, so if that's what you're looking for in this kind of movie, this won't satisfy. Personally, I found it a fairly enjoyable watch. 7/10

Neil Doyle In what appears to be a feeble rip-off of THE BIRDS, KAW stars SEAN PATRICK FLANERY as a man about to serve his last day as sheriff of a sleepy town when some nasty business involving black ravens preying on people comes to his attention. Naturally, he has to do something about it--and then the fun begins.What's so irritating about this one is that everyone seems to deliberately do the wrong thing in order to cause even more hell to break loose. Either careless with their guns or thinking they can shoot a couple of ravens and emerge without a scratch--not knowing that each "kaw" brings hundreds more to the scene.But the main trouble with KAW is that none of the people are the least bit interesting. In this kind of thriller, you have to care about the participants. Even SEAN PATRICK FLANERY as the brave sheriff doing his duty to protect the townspeople is as bland as can be. Let's face it, he's no ROD TAYLOR who played Hitchcock's hero in THE BIRDS.And unfortunately, Rod Taylor has a small role here as Doc, looking more like character actor Walter Brennan than Rod Taylor. He was just about unrecognizable to me until I realized I'd seen his name in the cast. Whatever, age has certainly caused a transformation in his looks.As for the story, it starts slowly but the moment it gets into the more frantic movements of the ravens, it goes into a frenzy of screaming hysteria from the girls on the bus and elsewhere dominating the movie until the end. If you enjoy listening to screams, this one's for you.Summing up: Some passable CGI effects and overall good photography but everyone is let down by a weak script and poorly developed characters.