Animal (2014)

good back-story, and good acting

Fresh and Exciting

Did you people see the same film I saw?

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

RELEASED IN 2014 and directed by Brett Simmons, "Animal" is about a group of people who find shelter in an abandoned house in the remote Connecticut woods staving off some kind of mutated predator that picks 'em off one-by-one.Cabin-in-the-woods horror has been done to death with a multiple different kind of monsters/creatures/villains (zombies, Jason, Bigfoot, vampires, wild dogs, mutated bears, flying creatures, psychos, etc.). I like these kinds of movies but to be effective they have to (1.) feature the proper staples and (2.) contain interesting subtext/mindfood. If they don't have the latter then they'll have to be exceptional with the former to make it worthwhile. The kinds of staples I'm talking about include excellent locations, great monster/creature/antagonist, quality characters, at least one alluring female, notable score/soundtrack and effective suspense build-up."Animals" features some of the requisite staples: quality sylvan locations (Connecticut); a superbly vicious-looking creature (which is a man-in-a-suit and not CGI); a decent cast; and curvy Elizabeth Gillies in a cute get-up (Keke Palmer too, if you prefer black women). While these attributes are good, they're not enough to elevate "Animal" from its hackneyed status (particularly since it's missing some of the required 'staples').Yet it's not just the movie's staleness that holds it back. There's also dubious acting (note the unconvincing conversation of the white/black couple during the early hike), obvious plot holes (the flimsy wooden barricades that the formidable animal could obviously break through at any time), predictableness (like when the foil buys the farm), eye-rolling drama (the gay confession), clichés (the "final Friday girl" and the climactic scene) and not enough suspense build-up, although it has some.The sad thing is that "Animal" was produced by Drew Barrymore and therefore had more funds than the typical cabin-in-the-woods slasher. If you haven't seen many of these movies then "Animal" is worth checking out. If not, I encourage you to see superior ones, even if several of them have much lower budgets, e.g. "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), "Friday the 13th I & II" (1980/1981) (actually, any of the Friday flicks), "Sasquatch Hunters" (2005), "Sasquatch Mountain" (2006), "The Lonely Ones" (2006) and "Flu Bird Horror" (2008) to name a handful ("The Lonely Ones" is a no-budget indie, but it's great in some ways; stay away, though, if you can't handle barely-a-budget horror). One thing's for sure, "Animal" is vastly superior to the lame, trashy "Cabin Fever" (2002).One last thing: Some have criticized the movie on the grounds that the creature's origins are never revealed. No, there are two blatant clues revealing its genesis.THE FILM RUNS 86 minutes and was shot in Hartford & Manchester, Connecticut. WRITERS: Thommy Hutson & Catherine Trillo. ADDITIONAL CAST: Parker Young, Jeremy Sumpter, Paul Iacono, Joey Lauren Adams, Thorsten Kaye and Amaury Nolasco.GRADE: C

So I saw this movie the first day it came out on VOD, I don't know why I decide to write a review now, so late. So I was actually pretty eager to see Animal because of Elizabeth Gillies (Who was on Victorious and I watched that when I was growing up) and she just seemed like a kick-ass person. A thing I appreciate about Animal was it's little low-budget shaky camera shots that made the movie feel pure and that they were just trying to have fun with this movie (Apparently they filmed it in a course of 2 weeks, which makes sense because this movie doesn't need a lot of time to film). The camera shots reminded me of how much goofy fun Chiller-Original-Movies can be. Now let's talk about the performances. Keke Palmer was amazing as usual, it's funny on how one person's acting skills can completely change how you feel about the character and the film. But overall, Keke is a very underrated actress, people forget about how she was in Akleeah and The Bee at such a young age and kicked ass at it. I would defiantly want to see her in more horror films. I'm actually enjoying her as Zayday on Scream Queens. Elizabeth Gillies was fine, I was actually impressed with her freaked out lines, she did well with those. I was actually pretty disappointed with Jeremy Sumpter's performance, I mean like I've never seen the dude in anything else but this movie but he was the most boring character. He was just so plain and emotionless, even when he died he couldn't really convince me to feel sorry for him. But everyone else was good. Now, I was really skeptical about the animal makeup effects because this film had such a low budget and I was pretty nervous to see how it turned out. It was good...from the shots with the waist up. When the whole animal had to be on screen, you can tell that they couldn't really control it that well. And the shot where Mandy runs over him was bad, you can see the blood already gushing out and it just laying there like a dummy. Although, Animal was a pretty damn fun movie to watch.

Horror movie opening: The Lesbo from Chasing Amy, That Guy From Soap Operas, and a Blatino(whom I'd love to sit on my face) watch a female rapper get torn to shreds by what we can only assume is Predator without the laugh. And then, ever so unexpectedly: A Beefcake and Eyebrows Plucked to Hell head out to the woods with Chilli, Peter Pan, and Sassypants McGee where they have a run in with Predator's mentally challenged cousin, and barricade themselves into a middle class version of the cabin from The Evil Dead. Joining forces with The Lezzie,Soap Opera DILF, and the Blatino(who becomes Senor Douche-bag), the movie dives headfirst into Dwindling Party Trope as Preda-dur-dur-dur picks them off one by one.See: Reinforce The Barricades, Try to Outsmart the Beast, The Asshole Won't Let Us Back In, Someone's Pregnant, "There used to be more of us", etc.Those things aside, the movie does break away from some of the conventions and the Typical Horror Movie Idiot Conversation is often balanced with some witty humor from Sassypants, who unfortunately Outs a Dead Guy(RUDE!) in fear. If more horror films balanced the humor and drama as well as this film did, the genre probably wouldn't be as much of a piñata for critics. And although in the end, it only ends up being a few notches above average, it's worth watching for horror fans.

Granted I wasn't expecting much after the first fifteen minutes. but its new to netflix streaming so what the hell right? Well the reviews do not lie, the bones of the film are solid, the cinematography, audio and the special effects were good. End of list. If you have seen any form of creature feature film, or monster movie even, you've seen this movie. If you haven't seen anything like this, stop and look up The Host, (korean) Grabbers, honestly so many more. The leads were consistent with most creature feature horror flicks, bad decisions were made, someones past is delved into and little attempt is made at working together, albeit for the commiserating silencing of the token villain..the dude from prison break. Yet, unlike many of its predecessors, to a fault - our protagonists reject any form of defense against the monster, save for a wall in between them. How long was that initial group there? i may have missed it but it seemed like the lay down and die approach was taken. Another issue i had was the lack of discussion regarding what the hell the creature is!? Everyone seems fine with believing it to be some woodland creature, common to the woods of wherever the hell this film takes place. While this device could have served as a commentary to the genre, in that a trope of creature features is the initial utter denial of the apparent danger or supernatural/otherwordly presence...the film chose to not really address it at all. overlooking the obvious opportunity for parody, the film instead sticks to its roots and merely chocks their insistence to denial up to stupidity and ignorance.Don't waste your time, with a little research there are some worthy genre pieces from which Animal borrows heavily.