KILLING BIRDS

Fred Brown, a soldier, returns to Louisiana from the Vietnam War to find his wife in bed with another man and kills them both and his parents, only sparing his son. While he is cleaning his knife, a falcon attacks him and tears out his left eye and blinds him in the other. He ends up at a hospital, where he says goodbye to the child before he is taken into foster care.

Twenty years later, a small group of college seniors, Steve Porter, Mary, Paul, Anne, Rob, Jennifer, and a local cop, Brian, are assigned to locate the ivory-billed woodpecker, a rare species which will be officially extinct by 1992, four years after the current point of the movie. Steven and Anne meet with Fred Brown, who gives them a packet of information on the bird they're searching for. The group makes the former home of Brown their “base” for as long as they're searching, which turns up nothing on their first day other than a rotting corpse in an abandoned truck.

Upon settling in the house, strange occurrences, such as doors closing on their own and Steve seeing things that aren’t there, begin. These become more prevalent as time goes by, including a nightmare where Brown similarly kills Mary to how he killed his wife. While exploring the aviary she discovered earlier, Jennifer is chased into a tool shed by a zombie, only to be beaten to death by another hiding in there. Brian is burnt to death in a freak accident caused by the fuel leaking from the generator. Mary, who suspects it to be the man in her dream who killed Jennifer, finds her corpse.

The survivors make it to the camper only to realize that Brian had the keys. While Rob attempts to hotwire the camper, a zombie attacks and kills Mary. They quickly abandon the camper to make a last stand in Brown's house while Brown suffers a mild heart attack when he realizes what is happening. While trying to fix the generator, a door slams open and blows dust into the room, frightening Rob into running into the generator. His necklace is caught in the generator, and he is strangled to death when the wire cuts into his throat. Paul, who witnessed the whole thing and didn't help Rob, tells Steve and Anne that the zombies killed him.

It is revealed by an email sent by Brown to Rob's computer that Steve is the baby Brown spared twenty years earlier. A zombie breaks into the house and nearly kills Anne. However, Steve saves her at the cost of a shotgun he found. Steve, Paul, and Anne hide in the attic, where a fourth zombie attacks and results in the death of Paul when he panics.

In the morning, the zombies' attacks have ceased, allowing Steve and Anne to escape the house. They meet Brown, and he tells them to get out and that the zombies were never after Steven and Anne, only those of their group that showed fear of them. The credits begin to roll as Steve and Anne look away in despair when they hear Brown's scream emanate from the house. Their fates are not revealed.

Steve and Anne survive until morning as the zombies' attacks cease, and escape the house after Brown explains the zombies only targeted those who feared them. Brown's scream is heard as they leave, with Steve and Anne's ultimate fate left unresolved.

The film concludes on a bleak and ambiguous note, emphasizing the cyclical nature of fear and violence tied to the house's tragic past. While Steve and Anne escape, the source of the horror remains, and Brown's final scream signals that the nightmare isn't truly over. The ending leaves viewers unsettled, with the boundaries between survivor and victim blurred by the house's lingering evil.