Despite playing the lead role in the classic original, Tippi Hedren plays a different character in belated sequel The Birds II: Land’s End. Alfred Hitchcock made many classics, from Rear Window to North By Northwest, Psycho and The Birds. Sequels to hit movies were very rare during Hitchcock’s era, however, so outside of remaking his own thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much, he never made a follow-up to his own work. The first genuine sequel to one of his films is 1982’s Psycho II, which picked up Norman Bates’ story 20 years after the events of the original.

Alfred Hitchcock passed away prior to production on Psycho II, and it was instead directed by Hitchcock acolyte Richard Franklin. The sequel was surprisingly great, paying respect to the original while pulling off a suspenseful whodunit mystery. There have also been several remakes of Hitchcock’s work including 1998’s infamous shot-for-shot recreation of Psycho, while 2007’s Disturbia with Shia LaBeouf is a modern update of Rear Window.

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The only other belated Alfred Hitchcock sequel is The Birds II: Land’s End from 1994. The original movie from 1963 starred Tippi Hedren as a socialite named Melanie Daniels and featured birds of all shapes and sizes suddenly attacking a small town. The Birds featured some of the most technically impressive setpieces of Hitchcock’s career and ended on a famously ambiguous note. The Birds II: Lands End was directed by Rick Rosenthal, who was no stranger to directing sequels to beloved genre classics, having helmed 1981’s Halloween II.

There’s a dearth of information on the production of The Birds II: Land’s End, but according to production assistant Craig Edwards, the movie was shot with theatrical hopes in mind. When it was later re-edited by producers, who added a gory opening attack sequence, Rosenthal was so unhappy he opted for the Alan Smithee director pseudonym and the film was sold to Showtime. The Birds II: Lands End revolves around a family who moves to a small island that’s soon beset by killer birds, and the movie is notable for a cameo by original lead Tippi Hedren.

Rather than playing Melanie from Hitchcock’s The Birds she plays Helen, the owner of the local store. Despite being a different character, Helen seems more tuned into the bird’s odd behavior than the other islanders, and another character later makes reference to the attack from the original. It seems the filmmakers may have been limited to the direct nods they could make to The Birds, which might be one reason Hedren plays a new character. A similiar situation happened with recent STV sequel Critters Attack! where Dee Wallace plays her character from the first movie – though due to legal issues she was given a different name.

That said, it could have been a creative decision to limit direct connections, but then it would be strange to bring back Tippi Hedren at all if that was the case. Hedren agreed to the sequel for the cheque it provided, which helped fund her animal preserve, and later admitted she was horribly embarrassed by The Birds II: Land’s End.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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