Films: Terror Birds (2016)
Alias: None
Type: Man-Made
Location: Forest/Civilized Area
Height/Weight: Twice that of average humans.
Affiliation: Neutral
Summary: When dinosaurs aren't doing it for you, why not just go for their closest relatives? Birds come in many shapes and sizes, and as one might guess, so too do the extinct ones. A prime example of how well birds evolved is the terror birds...but you would never know if you saw this stupid film.
History: Cloned for vague reasons, a pair of terror birds were exported to a lab in Texas. Unfortunately, they weren't unconscious for long, and everyone there was killed. Now, a bunch of youths who happen to live by there are in danger of becoming the terror bird couple's next meal.
Notable Kills: Nothing special.
Final Fate: The first terror bird is shot several times in the neck before the ammo runs out. The last one is led into a van rigged to explode. The deadly birds are all gone...except for the clutch of eggs nearby that just hatched...
Powers/Abilities: None.
Weakness: Anything conventional.
Scariness Factor: 2-Let's for a brief second put away the absolute frustration in us that these terror birds are just generic raptors with feathers and bird heads. Instead, we need to focus on the awful CGI that they're made of. Not once, not even in close-ups, do the foul fowls look like they are anywhere near the humans. They are quite violent, though.
Trivia: -The phrase "terror bird" is a colloquial reference to the many carnivorous flightless birds that dominated South America during the late Tertiary period. Among them, and perhaps the most recognized, was Phorusrhacos, a bird that stood about eight feet tall, and was said to have been the largest predator in the land. Basically, imagine a bird of prey mated with an ostrich and a secretary bird on crack, and you have the right idea. Oddly, its name translates to "bearer of wrinkles", most likely due to the texture of the front parts of its skull.
-For the longest time, earlier flightless birds such as the larger Gastornis were thought to be apex predators as well. However, more recent studies found that both were more well-suited to eating things like hard nuts and fruit. Then again, if there's anything we've learned from the cassowary, it's that even a vegetarian flightless bird can decimate you.
