Wild Beasts

Somehow PCP gets into the water supply that ends up driving the animals to attack people in this mid 80s eurotrash creature feature. Although the movie is never as fun as its concept promises. It still manages to be so utterly absurd especially when it concerns killer ballet dancer kids it's just fun and wild. What's really impressive is the real animals they used and I wonder how it all came together. The training must have been insane and I'm sure the film had some fatalities.

3.25/5

My review was written in June 1986 after watching the movie on Lightning video cassette.

"Wild Beasts" is an Italian horror feature that underscores the current dilemma between fantasy and realism in the shriek genre. Filmmaker Franco Prosperi applies his experience in the "Mondo Cane" school of shock tactics to a science fiction theme with technically good results but an audience turnoff and counter-productive to the film's socially conscious theme. Pic was made in West Germany in 1982 tith alternate title "Savage Beasts" and has been released domestically to the home video trade.

Premise is that PCP (angel dust) has seeped into the water supply of a German city as a result of industrial waste, with the immediate result that animals in the local zoo freak out, break out (aided by a power outage) and go on the rampage. Along with a horde of sewer rats the revenge of abused Mother Nature in the form of zoo beasts quickly turns into a disaster film mode. Zoo scientist Rupert Berner (John Aldrich), police inspector Nat (Ugo Bologna) and reporter Laura (Lorainne de Selle) lead the fight to save humanity.

Prosperi's talented special effects and animal experts crew provide the utmost realism to even absurd stagings, such as a polar bear attacking the dance class that Laura's daughter Suzy (Louisa Lloyd) attends. Some footage, such as flamethrowers applied to the horde of rats, looks real rather than faked. Mixed with the usual overdone makeup effects of gorily mangled human victims, the thrills are gruesome rather than entertaining. Just as in so many Italian-made cannibal films, the message alerting us to stop raping the environment gets lost in the urge to maximize the titiallation value of the horror scenes..

Franco Prosperi must really get off on killing animals, between this and all the shockumentaries he's done. This one's got some great sequences (shot in Frankfurt-am-Main) but never lives up to its great premise. Filmed entirely at night, the direction is clumsy and only rarely suspenseful. It's never boring or predictable but not terribly exciting or original, either. Though if you've waited all your life to see a naked woman get eaten by rats, here's your chance.

This is only okay but it has a very good start and if it had only gone a little bit further could have ad a sensational finish. The rats (mice?) and the lovemaking couple in the car is really well done to get things off to a scary, horrible and ultimately very gory beginning but although there is some fun to be had with elephants breaking out of the zoo and a cheetah chases a car down a high street (Frankfurt?) ir is not too horrific. Elephant foot on the face is not too pretty, I must say, though. Most interesting thing here is that the director is he of the Mondo Cane films and aside from the documentary style, Uncle Tom is his first dramatic feature. There is also quite an Umberto Lenzi feel here both with those constant zoomed close-ups of gory detail and the presence of Lorraine De Salle who also stared in cannibal Ferox and Ugo Bologna, here the police chief but also featured in Nightmare City. Interesting rather than gripping film and I can only imagine that to end when the children have begun to appear so menacing might have been in hope of a follow-up.

Gloriously insane "Nature Strikes Back" cinema from director Franco Prosperi, the "Godfather of Mondo", who delivers action and violence in very high doses, and has a body count...well, to die for. Much like many entries in this genre, the animal rampage is the result of human screw up. High levels of PCP contaminate the water supply of a zoo in a major European city. As a result, all the animals - including tigers, bears, and elephants - go crazy, bust out of the zoo, and terrorize the unlucky citizens of this city. The hero on the case is zoo employee Rupert "Rip" Berner (John Aldrich, in his only feature film appearance), and his leading lady is journalist Laura Schwarz (French beauty Lorraine De Selle, "Cannibal Ferox").

Prosperi decides early on, to Hell with good taste and common sense, and gives us a messed up horror film to cherish. Among our colorful characters are a daughter (Louisa Lloyd) who mocks and disrespects her mother, and a police inspector (Ugo Bologna, "Nightmare City") who obviously really likes to snack. The animal action is definitely first rate, and the various set pieces are comprised of actual animal attacks choreographed and supervised by circus trainers, and special effects. The delightful highlights include a cheetah attempting to run down a potential victim who's driving away, and elephants suffocating one person with a trunk, and stomping another chumps' head flat. (There really is some first rate gore here, as witness the after effects of a massacre by rats.) Prosperi wastes very little time in getting to the good stuff, and there's an amusing subplot late in the game involving that contaminated water.

Aldrich is a cheesy looking but entertaining guy, De Selle makes for a pretty decent heroine, young Lloyd is a definite hoot, and Bologna is a treat to watch.

If you love this genre, and haven't seen this one yet, I recommend you see it as soon as possible.

Eight out of 10.