In Middle Eastern folklore (that means it was in Arabian Nights) there is a gigantic bird of prey called the roc. In one of the tales from One Thousand and One Nights Sinbad used it as a mode of transportation, so it’s only logical that a movie about it is set in… Ireland.
A bunch of young adults go on a road trip in the Irish countryside and accidently kill an old gypsy fortune teller with eye cancer. The fortune teller puts a curse on them that the roc will get them and soon enough, they smell what the roc is cooking.
Roadkill is a bit gorier than the normal SyFy fair, as the killer bird has a penchant for ripping its victims face off before returning and flying away with their body. It’s like the normal SyFy fair, at least when it comes to the Maneater series, for not being able to focus on the maneater. In the worst of these films, the main plot is really about humans being evil. In this one, there is some shady guy who wants to kill our heroes because they stole a medallion from him.
At the hour mark Stephen Rea shows up for literally one scene. Rea was nominated for an Oscar for being in one of the most culturally relevant films of the early 90s, The Crying Game. He isn’t bringing his Crying Game game here as a policeman who is also cursed and wants the medallion because then the gypsies will lift the curse of him or something.
The raptor itself isn’t up to snuff. The film apparently spent more money on a CGI scene where a lighter is thrown in the air than on the roc, which is one of those bad PS2 effects that uses blur to mask how bad it is.
Should have done that to the whole movie.
