Welcome to Syfy Schlock!, a recurring column devoted to those infamous movies hailing from “The Most Dangerous Night on Television”. Indeed, I’m reliving Syfy née the Sci Fi Channel’s bygone weekend programming, which included some of the most dubiously made creature-features, supernatural slashers, and disaster movies to ever grace the small screen. And if you have even an iota of nostalgia for that now-obsolete age of reckless, low-tier entertainment as I do, then you’ve come to the right place.
For this installment, I originally opted for a bird-themed double-feature, but then I remembered the sheer pain of watching Flu Birds the first time around. Never. Again. So instead, I dug through Syfy’s extensive creature catalogue and settled on one bird movie and one tiger movie, both from 2007. Well, as dissimilar as this pairing comes across, Kaw and Maneater have some things in common, much to my own surprise.
Having aired in April, Kaw isn’t what you would normally expect to see in Syfy’s Spring schedule. In some places, early April is still considered Spring Break, however, rather than another shark feature or something just as derived, we got a movie about killer ravens. Ravens, not crows. And yes, there is a difference between crows and ravens, even if that point seemed lost on the folks behind the scenes. Ravens croak, not caw. Then again, maybe everyone involved did know that, but they also realized Kroak sounds worse than Kaw. Regardless, the movie itself makes the distinction early on and sticks with it. So shall I.
I tend to like birds, but the verdict is still out on ravens. My experiences with them can be traced to those times I’m eating outdoors, and they show up, without notice or fail, to watch me. The intensity in their beady, focused little eyes is as weird as it is fascinating. So as you might guess, that unease added to my experience with Kaw; the movie does a solid job of capturing that apprehension on screen.
Kaw is set in Mennonite country, in a small town that’s about to lose its sheriff. Sean Patrick Flanery and his character’s wife (Kristin Booth) were on the cusp of finally leaving for the big city when a rash of raven-related incidents forced them to stay. On top of the general mayhem caused by these feathered fiends, there’s now a stranded school bus in need of rescuing.
While the namesakes of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) don’t have any apparent cause for their sudden turn on mankind, the ravens of Kaw have valid reason for their harmfulness. As it turns out, those Mennonites have a dirty secret that they’re hiding, and it’s not the kind you’d expect from such a cloistered and fanatical community. No, in lieu of anything unseemly and freaky, the ‘nites are really just hiding mad cow disease. Those black scavengers then helped themselves to the tainted beef, and now everyone’s suffering. To ground a story like this, and with hard logic at that, feels unnecessary. Perhaps, though, the ravens having a neurodegenerative disease is easier to buy than a supernatural force.
Kaw can’t escape its comparisons to The Birds, especially when Rod Taylor also stars in this movie. Here he played an elderly doctor who lived to tell the tale of the stark-raving ravens. As for other similarities between the two stories, they’re general rather than specific. It’s another round of avian anarchy, yet it’s safer to compare Kaw to The Birds II: Land’s End than Hitchcock’s classic. That’s not a complete knock on that infamous sequel, by the way; one person’s trash is another’s treasure. But, yeah, Kaw is more fast food than casual dining, if that makes any sense. It doesn’t take the extra care and measure like Hitchcock did with his account of fowl frenzy, however, there are attempts at sustaining tension in Sheldon Wilson’s screenplay, even when he and Kaw director Benjamin Sztajnkrycer eventually surrender to the standards of all Syfy Originals.
Helping Kaw be better than the aforementioned, not to mention godawful, Flu Birds are its special effects. The CGI here isn’t anywhere as unsightly as that of most Syfy outings, but more impressive is the use of flesh-and-blood ravens. A set of highly trained birds flown in from the Czech Republic gives this movie way more credibility than it probably deserves.
Like Kaw, Maneater is set in the sticks, and the threatening animal is pursued by the local law enforcement. However, we don’t have someone like the comparatively calmer — and blander — Sean Patrick Flanery acting as the sheriff around these parts. No, we have Gary Busey on the tail of that tiger. That little bit of name casting gives this kitty some claws.
For a stretch of time, starting in the mid-2000s, Syfy aired a series of original creature-features that were co-produced by RHI Entertainment. And after airing, these entries would often be issued on home video as part of the Maneater Series. Fittingly, the titular installment is about a real beast, a Bengal tiger, but most others dealt in the unreal and fantastical. And shockingly, the predator here isn’t enhanced or mutated. No, it’s a bloodthirsty yet totally basic tiger that’s stalking the Appalachian Trail.
As opposed to Kaw’s looser narrative, Maneater is almost a beat-for-beat rehash of Jaws, only now with a tiger instead of a great white. A monster is picking off locals, and the mayor doesn’t want that fact interfering with the festivities. And standing in for Sheriff Brody is Sheriff Barnes (Busey); he’s not too strict about everyday laws, but he puts his foot down and his teeth out when a big-ass cat comes a-killin’.
Gary Yates is better known for directing Christmas TV-movies than horror, and it shows here. He is more keen on a slice-of-life drama that just so happens to have a ferocious tiger in between the small-town snapshots. Even the beginning of the movie feels atypical of most Syfy offerings; the tiger mysteriously arrives in this quaint town, after the truck delivering it crashes upon seeing a sleepwalking boy at night. From there then springs a slightly surreal connection between the boy and cat, one that doesn’t get explored as much as anticipated. As for its horror parts, Maneater is gaunt. Most of the tiger’s kills, while gruesome, are done off camera and lacking in suspense. There’s a real disconnect in this movie, giving it a sense of strangeness that I don’t know whether I like or not.
Both Kaw and Maneater touch on religion more than other Syfy joints, however, here that element is most pronounced in the devout Rose (Marina Stephenson Kerr) and her homeschooled son Roy (Ty Wood). The latter is that sleepwalker whose nocturnal activity freed the beast, so to speak. Yet apart from pious Rose and her teachings, which she is more personal than public, the movie doesn’t beat you over the head with a Bible like Rose does with poor Roy. Here, as in so many places, you find that faith is a just a fact of life. And its ubiquity is contrasted by something far less usual.
Up until its last twenty minutes or so, Maneater seems as listless, tired and confused as its young co-protagonist. The hunt for the tiger yields discoveries of death, sure enough, but there are no explicit encounters for quite some time. Just people walking in the woods and then being sprung on by the creature via POV shot rather than physically. We don’t see the tiger in action before the third act, which is almost worth the wait. There is some adequate cat-and-mouse play prior to that massive explosion used to eject this striped interloper from the story.
As generic as they are, Kaw and Maneater at least have the audacity to use flesh-and-blood animals to portray their animal antagonists. The latter goes so far as to avoid any CGI, even in that one startling moment between the big cat and a very brave stunt performer. Mind you, neither movie juts out on that overflowing shelf of natural horror, but it should bring you pleasure to see them go the extra mile in execution.
Stay tuned for more Syfy.
Tales from the Paulside 
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