I had a sneaking suspicious going into my viewing of Animal that it was basically going to be Feast set in the woods. This is also the third horror film that Golden Globe Winner Drew Barrymore, with her last feature, Happy Camp, being released earlier this year to mixed to negative reviews. Putting all these thoughts out of my mind, I purchased Animal on VOD and watched the whole thing through. So, what did I think?
“When plans for a weekend vacation hit a dead end, a group of close-knit friends find themselves stranded in unfamiliar territory, pursued by a menacing, blood thirsty predator. Holed up in an isolated cabin, tensions mount as long-buried secrets are revealed. As the body count rises, the group must put their differences aside and fight for survival.”
Animal is written by horror film documentary maker Thommy Hutson and Catherine Trillo, and directed by Husk creator Brett Simmons. Cast members include Jeremy Sumpter (Soul Surfer, “Friday Night Lights”), Joey Lauren Adams (“Switched At Birth,” “United States of Tara”), Elizabeth Gillies (“Victorious”), Amaury Nolasco (“Prison Break”), KeKe Palmer (“90210,” “True Jackson VP”), Parker Young (Killer Reality, Gingerdead Man II), Paul Iacono (Return to Sleepaway Camp), Thorsten Kaye (Shark Attack II, “All My Children”), and Eve (rapper: “Gangsta Lovin”).
Examining Animal from a production standpoint, it was actually pretty good considering it was produced by the Chiller Network. The film takes place almost entirely at night, often outside, but the lighting and picture quality is exquisite. There’s a lot of action and fast motion here, too, and it was all captured and edited together beautifully. I have literally no complaints about the finished product in terms of production because it is high quality and is put together perfectly. It’s not really that much of a shocker when you see the talented cast behind it, Drew Barrymore’s backing as an executive producer, and that Brett Simmons was directing this picture. Based on all of this information alone I think Animal should be getting a much bigger release than it’s receiving right now. Why can’t all Chiller films be like this?
The characters here were all the typical horror film stereotypes, but they were a lot more enjoyable than usual. The jock, the nice guy, the gay guy, the mean girl, the black girl…although later on in the movie more characters are added to the mix and I found it particularly interesting that 3 out of 9 characters were African American. That’s like…pretty big for diversity in a horror film. As far as acting goes, I was really excited to see KeKe Palmer and Elizabeth Gillies as the two leads. When I was in college I still watched the Nickelodeon channel and remember KeKe from “Tru Jackson VP” and Elizabeth from “Victorious.” It’s always cool to see child stars grow up and branch out into other genres of film and television. Other surprises were female rapper Eve and Joey Lauren Adams from Coneheads, Mallrats, and Big Daddy in a horror film. Very interesting to see the cluster of actors thrown into this movie who pulled it off quite well.
While I wasn’t too big a fan of the horror movie clichés, aka running and falling, splitting up, and other stupid stuff, I have to say they worked in this movie and kept the suspense level sky-high. This is not a movie where you are routing against the characters. Ok, maybe you route against one character… But, you want the rest to survive. So, when the monster starts chomping on people and blood is splattering everywhere, there is suspense and gore, but you will secretly hope for revenge. An animal’s gotta eat, but can’t it eat someone else?
My biggest problem with Animal is that it brings nothing new to the table in terms of originality. As I stated above, as confirmed by my viewing, this movie is basically Feast, but set in the woods. But, at least Feast gave us a vague backstory of the monsters where as in Animal you know nothing about them except they’re very fast unless eating, very ugly, and eat people. A quick search of IMDB reveals that Bryan Blair and Gary J. Tunnicliffe served as creature effects supervisors, but FX painter Snowy Highfield and Tunnicliffe both have credits previously working on Feast. Tunnicliffe was even the creature effects supervisor on that movie, too. Kinda looks like they copied the same species of monster and put it into Animal.
This is a hard movie to rate. While it looked beautiful, had a well rounded and interesting cast, and kept me entertained… It’s just missing…something…and I can’t get over the almost blatant rip off in the creature design. I’m going to give Animal a 6 out of 10.
