The Birthday (I) (2004) User Reviews

After the movie I shook my head, wondering what the hell I've just seen

[mardalsfossen01 · 7/10 · 25 September 2018]

In this movie definitely didn't happen what I was expecting (since I didn't read the summary).

The leading actor is darn good, even though u have to get used to his very unique type of cringy personality he's portraying. Some of his lines are pretty funny.

The events in this movie get out of hand at one point and in the end it had me leaving with the thought: "Okay... Did the world really need this movie ?! On the other hand, it really does have something about it."

So, maybe watch it, but don't be disappointed if it just leaves you shaking your head afterwards. The plot really is something else.

freaky show, awful movie

[correobasura · 15 December 2004]

First: I'm sorry for my English. I've seen this movie at the Sitges Cinema Festival, it was included at the Official Section. Filmed in Barcelona in English language, this Spanish production have only one set: a claustrophobic hotel that reminds me Barton Fink or David Lynch murky world. This is a very low budget film but the production effort it's a truly work in progress. Weirdy tale with a weird star: Corey Feldman, the wonder (and forgotten) boy starring The Goonies, Stand By me, etc..., it's here a truly one man show. The action is set in Baltimore, and tells a story about an eerie hotel, a crazy birthday and a satanic sect (in H.P. Lovecraft way) purchasing the arrival of the beast. Despite its frenetic tempo (think of Scorsese After Hours), this movie is very boring. The story is poor, the screenplay bad, and the result is awful. The acting is good but no one has a really good play. Only the setting is fine, also the cinematography and the sound effects. Not much, as you see. The footage, almost 2 hours, is excessive and the film conclusion is very disappointing. Eugenio Mira, the young director, could have told us this story in a very short film. It's a waste about this movie. A good idea, a freaky show, but an awful movie. 2/10

Ultra bad shitty

[nispe73 · 1/10 · 9 November 2006]

I don t believe much of the reviews seen here, i think that they are written by the crew of the movie. In Sitges, 2 years ago, all the crew was in the cinema during the movie: they were the only ones to applaud, to clap their hands and to "like" the movie. I've seen thousands of movies, and this one was the one that disappointed me the most and bored me the most on a cinema. It s boring, no implication at all from the viewers and ultra long, so you want it to end but it never happens. You spend all the movie time expecting for some climax but that never happens. As a friend, a lover of cinema, a huge fan of fantastic and horror movies, don t waste no minute in this garbage.

Avoid This Like The Plague - It Stinks!!!!!!!!!!!

[doubledownkid · 1/10 · 24 February 2005]

Like most of the other people who reviewed this I saw it at the Sitges Film Festival.

There were many reasons why this film was appealing to me. As a fan of mid '80s American teen films I was looking forward to a movie featuring the return of Corey Feldman which was described as being like an HP Lovecraft story directed by David Lynch.

Unfortunately the only positive I took from this film was that I now know that I have seen the worst film I have ever, and will ever see in my life. The acting was shocking. In particular Feldman's decision for his character to be some kind of Jerry Lewis style retard was just embarrassing and had me cringing from the first minute.

The story, or supposed story, is that Feldman's character is attending his upper class girlfriend's father's birthday party at a swanky hotel which also just happens to be where some religious fanatic types are just waiting for the re-birth of their god which will signal the end of the world (I'm not kidding, either) and it's up to Feldman to save the day.

I can't criticise this film enough. It was self-indulgent film making at it's worst and the financiers, cast and crew should be ashamed of themselves.

If you go to watch this, you're an idiot. If you liked it, you're an idiot. And if you are Corey Feldman or Eugenio Miro or any of the cast or crew you should turn your backs on film making and go and work in your local McDonalds.

A new hope

[montalbaran_1997 · 8/10 · 10 January 2005]

I also got to see the movie at Sitges and I am perplexed. I agree with my Italian counterpart on the "love or hate" stance but I believe that the movie still has to grow on us all. The tempo is awkward but it's compensated by the brilliant sound and camera movements that keep us inside the movie's technique, something I believe Eugenio Mira intended for when he made the movie. I would say once again that it is too soon to judge "The Birthday" when, for now, it is heading to be a cult movie, indeed similar to Donnie Darko (my all time favorite), that has still to be seen and compared to similar movies that are trying to grasp a new style of cinema that young filmmakers are trying to institute in the new millennium. Last but not least, I want to point out that the actors are great specially taking into account the fact that the movie was made on a low budget in Spain. Corey Feldman makes me wonder why he disappeared for a decade from mainstream movies ( "The Birthday" looks like one of them, anyway...) but I believe that with this movie he has a made a great comeback playing a role that suits him well and that probable only he could represent. Check it out dudes! THE cult movie of the year (and it's only just started!)

So boring

[donchavito · 1/10 · 4 December 2007]

Don't waste your time checking out this movie. The Plot may seem interesting but the film is far from being entertaining. I spent half of the movie (I couldn't watch more) for a twist but nothing happens. Slow rhythm, poor interpretations. I don't know how people can put more than one star on The Birthday. Maybe the people who worked in the movie voted. More surprised that was nominated for best film at Sitges Film Festival. Anyway as I told I found this movie among the worst in fantastic cinema. It's sad seeing Corey Feldman playing in these kind of movies when I remember him in such classics as Stand by Me, The Lost Boys or The Goonies.

Rosemarie's baby meets The Shinning meets The Royal Tenenmbaums.

[hkido2 · 9/10 · 9 January 2005]

I saw the movie at the SITGES FILM FESTIVAL 2004 in Spain (if you notice some noisy mistakes I really sorry… but I'm an Italian guy!!!) and I'm afraid this movie is not gonna be very successful at the box office… mainly because of his WILD NATURE!!!

I mean, I don't know how the guys who made such a THING like this are gonna sell it… but I'm afraid is not an easy task. THE BIRTHDAY is the kind of movie that you LOVE or you HATE!!! And that's great, from my point of view.

Leet's see. You can like it or not, but this movie is EVERYTHING but disappointing. You can't expect what's gonna happen, and I'm not talking about the plot… it's more about the APPROACHING. Actually, If you read the synopsis, you think you're gonna see a straight to video flick (specially when you discover that COREY FELDMAN is in it!!!) but, man… THE BIRTHDAY is a UNIQUE cinematic experience. I'm serious!!! I'm not a film geek!! It's incredible how fast you forget you're supposed to be seeing a "genre movie". The characters (Corey Feldman is GREAT in this one!!!), the length of the shots (the movie follows the real time policy), the sound design (oh my GOD!! You really have to HEAR the last 20 minutes of the movie!!)… everything is… different. Specially in the first half, where NOTHING IS WHAT YOU EXPECT. We exclusively see just what Corey's character sees but, besides that, we agree or not with his decisions. And that's the most exciting thing about this movie.

THE BIRTHDAY starts with a "PeterSelleresque" Corey that stumbles with everything and everybody he finds across his path… and at the end of the movie, he's a HERO. But you don't notice this evolution. It's like when you're living with your parents at home for years: you don't realize they are getting older until you take a look to some pictures of the family album … because you've been growing with them. That's the magic of this movie, from my point of view. The real time policy never goes against the movie. Man, we all spend a lot of time watching BIG BROTHER on TV… and I can assure you that THE BIRTHDAY delivers a more… intense and thought provoking experience, at least.

I must say that sometimes is hard to follow, and I understand that some people get lost, specially with the speed the different dramatic tones change. Sometimes you think you are seeing a black comedy… some other times you'd swear Corey Feldman is the guest star in a TWIN PEAKS episode… and some other times it smells like a JOHN CARPENTER movie!!! It's weird… and exhausting. The atmosphere of the movie owes his flavor to David Lynch (The girl in the movie has a lot to do with Laura Palmer), the Coen Brothers (It's easy to think in BARTON FINK'S hotel) and, Paul Thomas Anderson (specially PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, with a very similar main character).

I think I have a better example: The best and the worst you can say about this movie is that it could be a Brian De Palma movie, with outstanding scenes driven by a "bigger than life" cinematic passion… but weirdly disturbing as a whole. RAISING CAIN, SNAKE EYES & FEMME FATALE are good examples. That kind of De Palma movie, where the director explores his obsessions with TOO MUCH passion… forgetting he has to deliver a "movie". A good one. But I'd never say THE BIRTHDAY is not a good movie… it's a TERRIFIC experience. My opinion.

Well, I don't know what to say. There's something about this movie, no doubt about it. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I hope to see this one in a big screen soon. Happy Birthday!!!

New cult film

[adrian_guerra · 10/10 · 6 January 2005]

I had the opportunity to see this wonderful film at last Sitges Film Festival. It is not an easy film, in fact, it is dammed to be misunderstood by the big crowds and the old fashion film reviewers. This movie is something really weird in the Spanish cinema, you can tell by seeing 2 seconds of it, that its director knows about cinema, he knows how and where put the camera and fills the screen with lots of details .

One of the things that I loved the most from it was all the homages to the biggest 80s classic films (Gremlins, Back to the future,etc.)

The birthday, besides its multiple good things, its far from perfect, it is way too long (almost two hours)and one of the main characters in the second half is really disturbing and was near of taking me out of the movie.

Eugenio Mira is a filmmaker to keep an eye on, he just made the geek film of the 2005 (Donnie Darko is one of the films that comes to my mind when thinking about The birthday).

If you are able to check out this film in a festival, don't miss it, you won't be disappointed!

Pretty awesome cult film

[macgruder · 10/10 · 13 August 2008]

* I updated my review from 2008 to when i just saw it again in 2023

In 2004, Corey Feldman made a movie called The Birthday, in Spain. It never made it to America besides a few film festivals.

Jordan Peele had a film festival this week at the Walter Reede Theater and he wanted to close it out with this film. This was essentially the US world premiere, almost 20 years later.

I had seen this movie probably a decade ago thanks to the internet, but it was a crummy German dvd rip and it really lost a lot of its detail and sound design. This screening was a 35 mm print and it looked and sounded amazing.

Corey and the director Eugenio Mira were both in attendance to speak briefly before the start and to have a 25 minute Q&A after the film ended.

The film itself is about a man named Norman (Feldman) who is attending a birthday party for his girlfriend's father at the hotel he owns. What starts out as a relationship plot slowly over time deviates into something more sinister. Throughout the movie, there is a building undertone of dread and mystery as the soundtrack drones on with weird ambient noises that sneak up on you from the background.

About a third of the way in, things start to get weird. Unfolding slowly is the real plot, involving a religious cult who believe that the beast that will usher in the end of the world is being born in that hotel that night.

I don't want to go too much further into the plot, but the last 15 minutes or so are so visually and aurally intense and there is so much chaos going on all at once. It reminded me a lot of some of David Lynch's work. Seeing it in the theater really brought out the sound design, which was one of my favorite parts of this movie.

Feldman is at his best here. He plays the character with a tinge of comedy, channeling Peter Falk (during the q&a, he claims he was doing a Pacino impression from Dog Day Afternoon but I'm not gonna agree). He's got a weird voice that is ridiculous at first but after two minutes I couldn't see him playing it any other way. He plays the opposite of his usual cool and confident characters as a meek nebbish pushover. This characteristic is a major part of the plot as he tries the entire movie to get his girlfriend aside to have a serious talk about their relationship but he's constantly being ignored.

The film has plenty of weird stuff going on, strange characters throughout and a lot of comedy at the expense of the weird. Feldman plays out a lot of slapstick comedy in this film and it works well. The entire film is set inside the hotel so you see the same sets over and over again but you never get bored of the scenery.

Feldman and Mira spent a good amount of time answering questions about the film after the film ended. A bunch of good stories were told and it was being filmed. Perhaps that footage will make it to a BluRay release at some point in the future.

Highly recommended.

Truly entertaining

[Xcen · 10/10 · 13 July 2005]

Please don't listen to people that cannot appreciate "self-indulgent cinema" Yes, people sometimes make movies for themselves, and the people that happens to be like them (i.e.: me!) will enjoy those ultra-personal productions to a higher level.

This movie takes you away from the very beginning, it IS a surrealistic Lovecraftian tale and to see Corey Feldman in a new, refreshing role was a bit awkward, which only added to everything else.

I saw this at the Fantasia festival in Montreal and was flabbergasted, on the edge of my seat, smiling or mouth wide open until the end where I burst into applause.

Watch out for the "deaf" scene: it's pure sonhorrific genius!

Simply awesome film

[respero1138 · 10/10 · 10 October 2005]

This is one of my new favorites. This is my first review of a movie at IMDb, which I am compelled to write after seeing The Birthday at the first annual Fantastic Fest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. It was the U.S. debut of the film and the director was even in attendance, but the theater wasn't even particularly packed. It makes me sad that this amazing film may never get even a proper art house run in the United States.

This film is quirky, campy, unique, super-fun, with a hypnotic and seriously creepy atmosphere. If you're used to traditional Hollywood fare, you might find it a bit puzzling, but give it a shot anyway. I've seen tons of genre films, and The Birthday is one of the most UTTERLY UNIQUE and refreshingly inventive films I have ever seen. It's unpredictable and keeps you guessing, the casting is inspired (the believability Corey Feldman brings to his peculiar but lovable character amazed me), and it uses the perfect mix of horror and comedy. This is a crowd pleaser, and some of the most fun I've had in years. I don't know how many times the audience broke into wild applause, and I nearly went deaf when the entire theater went nuts for the ending.

I should say that I saw the edited version of this film. It's intended to be a real-time 117 minutes, but they cut out 20 minutes of less intensive material, which made me feel a little cheated. I guess there's always the DVD. In sum, this is one hell of a fun movie, and I would highly recommend giving it a chance.

There is nothing conventional about this extraordinary film

[momentsoffilm · 8/10 · 24 January 2009]

A Spanish produced English language movie filmed in a Baltimore hotel set created in Barcelona, there is nothing conventional about extraordinary film The Birthday directed by Eugenio Mira and staring Corey Feldman.

Norman goes to meet his girlfriends parents for the first time at her father's birthday party, finding out only after he arrives that nobody other than his sweetheart Alison is expecting him, on top of which there are some very strange goings on indeed with the waiting staff and another party of Norman's old school pal that's going on upstairs.

Norman is forced to choose between being a bystander or a hero as he tries to impress Alison's parents, find time to give her a present to confirm their commitment and prevent the birth of a cult God.

While the premise is great the storyline of The Birthday is frustratingly hard to make sense of or understand and to some extent it lacks a satisfying conclusion but there are so many great things about this film that it's hard to be upset by that fact.

Shot beautifully in a purpose built stylistically designed and moodily lit set, we got to experience the full depth of colours as the festival screened the original 35mm print rather than a digital copy. The film plays out in real time as we follow Norman about the hotel, witnessing events unfold peripherally as he does and the technique works brilliantly putting the viewer right in there in the midst of the discoveries in a very experiential way.

Corey Feldman is wonderful as Norman creating a surreal character who becomes more and more believable within the escalating bizarreness of events. It takes a lot of craft to pull that off as an actor and Corey flawlessly inhabits his character's skin. The sound design was particularly stunning and affecting too and that alone is worth the trip to the cinema.

Corey Feldman was there at the screening I saw at the Raindance Film Festival 2008. He gave a long talk and Q&A earlier in the day about his extensive film career and growing up as one of the most well known faces of the 80's and he talked before and stayed after the film screening to answer questions about it and meet those who came to see it. Director Eugenio Mira was also there talking enthusiastically about his aims and process in making this film happen and his ongoing push to get it seen as widely as possible. I can see why these guys are so warm and enthusiastic about their film and so appreciative of the people who came to see it. Few first time indie film debuts stretch these kinds of film-making boundaries and The Birthday, though it doesn't hit all marks, is certainly worth experiencing and enjoying for the very fun and unique premise and piece of film-making that it is.

The best of the eighties

[therealgodfather-1 · 9/10 · 9 September 2008]

If you love David Lynch's Blue Velvet, DePalma's Body Double, Dante's Blurbs and all the Spielberg (or Amblin) stuff, this is you movie. This is a movie who takes on Norman, a boy on an incredible situation. This movie is well directed, beautifully photographied and it has something captivating inside: it's a journey that has the best of Lynch, DePalma, Spielberg and even the fantastique of Argento. There are a lot of long shots that define the aesthetic of this movie. If you're a lover of the Hudsuckey Proxy, this is a nervous comedy with an extraordinary story that it must be remembered as the Spanish Barton Fink. It's something unpredictable, with a Woody-Allen-like Corey Feldman and all it feels like Shaun Of The Dead.

A Hidden Gem! But not for everybody! Spoilers!

[Serenity1984 · 8/10 · 12 September 2008]

I got this imported from Germany and my wife and i watched it together. It is a very weird little film. The feeling and style is very much of a David Lynch movie mixed with the Shining, and I'm not not comparing it to the these 2 classics just its look and style. The film is about Norman who goes to meet his Girlfriend at her fathers Birthday at a hotel. He has some friends on the upper floor who are all having a party. He does not have the strongest relationship with his girlfriend and she is very controlling. She sends him to the party on his own, nobody knows him at all. It feels very awkward even with his girlfriend finally coming down. Its about 40 mins in when the film really kicks into gear with a very over the top waiter saves Norman and advises him that a demon is going to be born in the hotel in the body of someone who will die at the party. His friends on the top floor are sacrifices. I wont go onto ruin the rest but a lot more happens and is brilliant. Corey Feldman broke away from his child actor persona here. He is in every scene the other actors are really just there but all play there parts. I can see why Corey is proud of this film, he really does shine. I cant actually believe with all the crap that is released today not one studio picked this up and released it. It would not have a problem gaining a cult audience at all. I am glad i picked this up and when i ordered it i thought its cool we will watch it and ill sell it and get my money back. The Birthday has taken its rightful place on my DVD shelf. If you want to check something out a little different from mainstream, and get the feel back of those old 70s and 80's horror films you once watched buy this. My rating is a worthy 8/10