Writer: Franco E. Prosperi
Director: Franco E. Prosperi
*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***
When PCP somehow finds its way into the water system of a northern European city, the animals in the zoo get completely off their faces and escape, posing a lethal threat to all they encounter. It's up to zoologist Rupert "Rip" Berner (Aldrich) - luxurious of barnet and impeccably groomed of moustache - to save the day...
After co-directing the infamous series of "Mondo" documentaries, Franco E. Prosperi breaks out on his own here with this genuinely deranged tale of man's not-so-best friends running amok in a metropolis teeming with potential meals. His previous work featured genuine scenes of animal cruelty so maybe he thought it was time the animals got their own back. Does it redress the balance? Well, as it's fiction, not at all. Still, on with this very strange show.
Early on, a canoodling couple in a car helpfully leave the doors open and decide to let a whole load of rats chow down on them and from there the film steadily ups the ante in terms of the dangerous beasts on show, giving us a dog (who clearly doesn't like its owner's choice of LP), a cheetah, elephants, a tiger and ultimately a bloody great polar bear versus a bunch of humans who were never going to get the "most likely to survive in a crisis" award.
I suppose the "northern European city" referred to in the film's opening moments is never actually referred to by name because its residents are such idiots, choosing to drive into each other or somehow manage to send their cars airborne through shop windows instead of, well, you know, maybe steering around the animal that they can see a bit further down the road. For most of the movie it does feel like if these people hadn't been eaten by tigers or trampled by elephants they'd have probably touched some bare wires sticking out of a mains socket or just blundered off a cliff before too long.
There's virtually no character development either as the main players are dropped into the mayhem with very little build-up and so it's difficult to care about them much, save for Rip with his animal rapport and his, ahem, "animal magnetism". And despite his genuine affection for his furry pals at the zoo he's also a bit of a dick, exchanging laddy bantz with local cop Bologna at the expense of his girlfriend, journalist Laura Schwarz (De Selle, top-billed here but sidelined for a substantial portion of the running time).
Which brings me to the script. It's unwaveringly dreadful, full of dialogue exchanges that would never take place anywhere else other than in this movie. It's also overloaded with a smarmy sexism that renders the female characters in the movie - De Selle included - little more than damsels in distress who ultimately need rescuing by guys such as Rip. Laura doesn't even get to do much in the way of investigative journalism either, it being Rip who suggests she may have a contact at the water company who may give some insight as to what's going on.
The performances are generally perfunctory save for Aldrich who gets the lion's share (I know, I'm sorry) of the story and at least he seems to be enjoying himself. De Selle, who's actually pretty good in other sleazy Euro exploiters such as Cannibal Ferox and The House On The Edge Of The Park, looks a touch bored here. As well she should be considering her character is given so little depth beyond having a difficult relationship with her bratty daughter which finally comes into play courtesy of a late, taste-free twist. To be honest, the cheetah out-acts most of the cast and probably should have demanded a bigger role.
And yet it's not all awful. Yes, it's mostly awful but the sequences where the animals attack do work fairly well despite how clumsily they're put together. The scene where a cheetah chases a VW Beetle is memorably bonkers, not to mention an impressive technical achievement considering the paucity of the budget I'm assuming the film-makers had to work with here. The appearance of the polar bear is a showstopper too, it's just a shame the rest of that section of the movie doesn't go on to deliver a truly satisfying payoff.
If you're turning up for the gore there's plenty of offal getting cleavered and chucked about for starters and a couple of the munched victims are a bit on the grisly side but it never really goes genuinely full-on in terms of blood and guts and errs on the side of super close-ups of its slaughtered unfortunates so you end up looking at something which is bloody and vaguely unpleasant but generally undefined beyond that.
A crazy concoction of lunk-headed machismo, terrible writing, gossamer-thin characterisation and muddy visuals, Wild Beasts is sunk even further by its climax, which isn't really a climax at all. It just ends. There's no resolution other than the fact that eventually the drugs will wear off and everything will go back to normal. Even so, couldn't there have been one final, totally batshit battle between bloke and beast? Apparently not.
If you're of fan of genuinely trashy movies then Wild Beasts does possess at least some entertainment value, if only for its utterly barmy plot and the odd moment that must be seen to be believed. However, if your idea of human-animal interaction begins and ends with Doctor Doolittle then you should avoid it this like it's a herd of stampeding elephants. And if you're smart enough to even consider avoiding them then you obviously don't live in the aforementioned "northern European city".
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