My Animal

A sad excuse of a movie with everything wasted, besides the two leads who enjoyed very much their time in the movie and the supporting cast having fun in the snow and indoor.

The movie would have benefited from a tight editing bringing the runtime down to 45-50 minutes, to add some transformations, some thrills and some ghastly discoveries from both sides. To have this one categorized as horror and romance is only in Jacqueline Castel's head.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 4
• Development: 5
• Realism: 5.5
• Entertainment: 6
• Acting: 5.5
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 6
• VFX: 5
• Music/score/sound: 4.5
• Depth: 3
• Logic: 2
• Flow: 4.5
• Horror/romance: 3
• Ending: 0.5.

Right, well I was under the impression that I would be in for a werewolf movie of sorts, as I sat down to watch the 2023 movie "My Animal" from writer Jae Matthews and director Jacqueline Castel. However, I have to admit that I hadn't even heard about the movie prior to sitting down and watching it, so I didn't exactly know what I was getting into here.

This movie failed to capture my interest, especially since the movie's narrative was slow paced, the visuals were sort of surreal, and it wasn't exactly the type of werewolf movie that I had hoped for. And I have to admit that the way that writer Jae Matthews concocted the script and storyline just didn't appeal much to my liking.

The only familiar face on the cast list for me was Stephen McHattie. The acting performances in "My Animal" were actually fair enough, despite the fact that the movie's plot and script utterly failed to entertain me.

Visually, then director Jacqueline Castel didn't deliver a movie that tickled me in the right places.

My rating of "My Animal" lands on a two out of ten stars. And this is definitely not a movie that I will pick up a second time.

This film was only an hour and forty-three minutes but it felt like three hours. As someone who has been a youth in rural Canada I deeply resonated with the depiction of the bleakness and dullness of life in small northern town. It was hopeless and boring as a youth, and it didn't make for a very entertaining film.

The acting was great, but too many long drawn out fantasy sequences that didn't really add to the film. It looked good. I liked the lighting and the setting, but...nothing happens. It needed more story and fewer music videos.

It was tagged as horror and romance, but it did not have enough of either. It had barely any of either really.

Finally, why is Canada only allowed to make werewolf movies now?

Firstly, I appreciate the strong atmosphere and creative take on the horror romance genre as director Jacqueline Castlel does offer strong sense of direction on creating the atmosphere, characters, and narrative. Castel proves she has talents on film directing after creating various music videos for various artists like Zola Jesus, Moon Duo and Jim Jarmusch. Premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in the Midnight Selection, while ambitious, it was a decent slice-of-life romance horror movie.

Throughout, the production is solid and the camerawork is pretty good on capturing the Canadian landscapes and snowy atmosphere setting. There are some amazing visual presentations as the visuals felt dream-like, strange and colorful which reminded a lot of 80s and giallo horror visuals. Most of the performances were solid as the main leads are pretty good with some decent chemistry between one another.

The narrative and concept about queer lovers and werewolves is pretty awesome as not often LGBTQ themed concepts in horror genres are explored. However, while the narrative does offer some good ideas, the narrative doesn't feel as strong as it was hoping for. Many concepts that could have been explored wasn't really fully utilized which made the characters not fully interesting nor connectable.

There are good themes explored about sexuality, identity and societal expectations as the themes were explored but some themes could have used a little work on fully developing the characters. The musical soundtrack is pretty good which brought a good 80s vibe to it. The dialogue is solid while there were a few dialogue moments that felt kind of rough.

Overall, it's clear the movie has ambition and there are strong direction and good metaphors are explored, yet, needed some improvements. Decent Midnight Flick.

My Animal is a movie about a subject matter I already like. Yet I was completely uninterested and bored immediately and throughout. I even stuck it out to the end in hopes of at least one cool scene or even a moment. But nope, it's just nothing, through and through.

There is barely enough substance for a short story, let alone a feature length film. Character motivations and decisions seem random and unearned. And the messaging is heavy-handed and obvious.

The only positive I can think of is the general tone, driven by the music and some cool trippy visuals. But that isn't nearly enough to warrant the time it takes to watch this movie. (1 viewing, 12/13/2023)