One of five movies that Andy Milligan was to shoot for British distributor Leslie Elliot — before the falling out with Elliot’s father, who was his business partner — Nightbirds was written on the plane to England.
It’s not the normal — well, was anything he did normal? — horror movie that Milligan was getting known for. Dink (Berwick Kaler) and Dee (Julie Shaw) meet, hook up and he moves into her attic apartment. Then they grow so obsessed with each other that the outside world no longer matters. Their worship game is one of trying to outdo the other, trying to make the other the victim when it should be about lovemaking. It’s not, but you already knew that going in.
Like Vapors, this is an intimate film and not one of blood and horror. Well, you could say that there is horror but not the supernatural kind. I read someone once who said they wondered what Milligan’s career would have been like if Warhol had paid him instead of Paul Morrissey and I bet he’d have ruined the opportunity sooner than later, but just dream of what could have been.
