Watched an old movie last night called The Birds, one of Alfred Hitchcock's later movies. A rather odd movie that doesn't fit so much with the rest of Hitchcock's movies, and falls more into the "nature turns against man for no reason" category.

I remember watching this movie as a kid and thinking it was at times extremely boring and at times extremely cheesy. The horror didn't really seem believable, and it took an entire hour for the film to even start involving any bird-related issues of any kind. Since I was pretty young when I first saw it, most of the character build-up was completely lost on me...I was just watching it to see birds kill people.

Watching it now, several years later, I realize that the movie is supposed to be about people. All of that build-up in the characters I thought was tedious as a kid now makes sense. It's clear to me now that Hitchcock was trying to create a film about people, and the whole deadly bird thing is supposed to play second fiddle.

This is what Stephen King always does so well...he creates realistic characters. His books spend a great deal of time building up characters, and all throughout, it's possible to peer inside the character's head, see what they're thinking, to empathize with them. The essence of his books is the people.

Of course, take that element out of the story and what do you have? A Stephen King movie. Most film adaptations have missed this distinction and assume, mistakenly, that King's work is successful because it's about vampires, telekinetic teen girls, zombie cats, or lunatic alcoholic writers in isolated Colorado hotels. As a result, the films end up casted with B-list actors and focus on things that goes bump in the night. Good for a campy scare when you're nine years old, but not terribly meaningful.

Then again, maybe for horror, "meaningful" isn't the point. I didn't watch The Birds when I was a pre-teen for the romantic storyline.