That’s right, ‘kaw.’ As in the sound a bird makes. Or, to be more exact, the sound a killer raven makes before it tears you to pieces with its black beak and sharp claws. Now, if you’re thinking, “Gee, with a name like that, the movie couldn’t possibly be any good,” you’d be pretty much right. So let’s toss aside the obvious Hitchcockian angle here and focus on what really matters: the terrible fate of the humble country folk who must battle an epidemic of mad ravens with a hunger for flesh. How will they survive? I mean…will they survive?

Kaw (2007) stars Sean Patrick Flanery (Boondock Saints) as Wayne, a small town sheriff (in jeans) on the verge of quitting so he and his lady friend, Cynthia (Canada’s Kristin Booth), can move to a big city where she can put her cultural anthropology degree to good use. But as we know, if you’re a cop in a movie and it’s your last day of work, chances are it’s not going to go so smoothly (just ask Robert Duvall or Morgan Freeman).

So, Wayne’s day starts off with an investigation into the mysterious death of a local farmer. Then he gets a call that local drunk/curmudgeon/school bus driver, Clyde (the great Stephen McHattie…also Canadian), has been shooting off his gun, which is a no-no when you’re within city limits. Clyde tells Wayne he was attacked by a bunch of birds and had to defend himself, but Wayne doesn’t buy it. Of course, when more people start winding up dead with fatal bird-inflicted injuries and Wayne can’t help but notice the incredible amount of ravens flocking into town, he realizes that maybe Clyde isn’t so crazy after all.

The ravens in question here are quite diabolical. They seem to have a leader (of course, that could be my imagination seeing as how all the birds look alike, but I swear that one bird dude was always calling kawing them into action), they recognized guns and got quite agitated whenever someone pointed one at them, they were able to cut the power at the restaurant where everyone was taking shelter, and they attacked Clyde’s broken-down school bus by picking up rocks in their claws and throwing them at the windows.

The description my PVR guide gave this movie was a bit misleading because it referred to the ravens as mutant, but they’re not really mutant at all. You see, there’s a Mennonite family living in town and their cows started getting sick. They believed it was God’s punishment for mingling with the English folk and letting Cynthia take pictures of them (something to do with being vain, I guess). Instead of informing the town that their cows were dying, they just decided to burn the cattle corpses and hope God’s wrath would end if they smartened up. However, before they could get rid of the dead meat, the ravens came and had a little treat. And  there you have it. Not mutant, just suffering from mad cow disease.

Anyway, the hundreds of crazy ravens wreak all the havoc they can while the trapped townspeople fight to survive. You know how it goes. Kaw really is a weak movie with sub par acting, a lame script, and many laughable moments, and unless you have a serious case of ornithophobia, it’s hardly scary at all. I say stick with Hitchcock for all of your avian thrills and chills, but, as always, if it’s really bad fun you’re in looking for, then this movie is a kawtastic time.

Check out the trailer for Kaw!