Wild Beasts

Wild Beasts (1984)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Franco Prosperi

Starring: John Aldrich, Lorraine De Selle, Ugo Bologna, Louisa Lloyd, Stefania Pinna

From: Shumba International Corporation

Monday night I saw this infamous 80's exploitation movie, which has an amazing premise and yet due to some elements that range from kind of gross to really gross, it was not as enjoyable as I hoped. At least last night I rewatched John Wick, which is still pretty awesome. As for what it is about Wild Beasts that raised my ire, you'll find out below: 

Here is a movie I have known about for awhile; it's hard to forget when you first hear that there's a motion picture out there which is about animals at a zoo that go berserk and escape after drinking PCP-LACED WATER. Recently, it was put on Amazon Video and on a whim, I finally saw it last night. Due to moments that are horrifying in the wrong sort of way, I can't recommend this. You'll soon see what I mean. Then again even without that I can't say that this was good as it is filled with awful moments involving just the humans and there are some atrocious unbearable characters and even for an Italian horror movie of this time, plenty of things made little to no sense.

The setting is “a large northern European city”, as a title card helpfully tells us. Not 10 seconds later, we see a sign that is only barely obscured... it was set and filmed in Frankfurt, Germany. I already explained how it's about wild animals (but mainly large jungle cats and elephants) that escape from a zoo while high on PCP and cause a lot of havoc. A tremendous-looking man (nicknamed RIP) with large brown curly hair and big mustache leads the charge in stopping this madness. He also has a lady friend who has an extremely awful daughter who is all of about 12 (more on her later); all the children you see in this film are as aggravating as can be, which is one of this movie's problems.

As I said already, this is Italian horror and things were nonsensical. Often I was befuddled by the plot and why certain things were happening. The non-animal scenes tended to be pretty painful and not good. At least the animal attacks were memorable (w/ plenty of gore) and there were unforgettable moments, such as seeing a cheetah chase after a Volkswagen Beetle convertible. I also got some solid unintentional laughs out of this; there are more crashing cars than you'd expect.

However... I can't in good conscience give this a decent rating. While I was entertained at times, there were obvious signs of animal abuse, and that doesn't even take into account the scene where many rats were set on fire. It was clear a few times that animals were in distress, and you even see animals attacking each other. I am not a nutcase PETA A-hole by any stretch of the imagination, but that did make me feel uncomfortable. I hope the animals were otherwise not mistreated, but I have a sinking feeling about it. Even more but not as much so as a scene early on, something I'll call “a Victor Salva moment.”

I realize that is an incredibly bold statement to make. That said, what else am I supposed to think about a particular scene involving that aforementioned girl who looked like she was about 12 or so... she is laying in bed at home then gets out of bed and walks around... while wearing only panties and a button-up shirt? Far worse, you see her chest before she buttons up her shirt... how did this moment even make the final cut? Unluckily, that was not the only icky moment involving that young actress and the camera leering at her. I laugh about “Italian sleaze” but that is far above something I can giggle about. Of course, neither the pedo stuff nor the most questionable animal stuff was even needed for the movie. Maybe this is something that should be remade, and with CG it can be less gross and less exploitative in the worst of ways. It's not important in the grand scheme of things, but my opinions of such things does reflect in the score; I do have to penalize it and the rating does reflect this.

I know that other people can look past those disturbing bits and enjoy this movie; after all Severin Films is putting it out a week from today (as of when I am posting this; it's known by its common title of Wild Beasts). Personally, I thought this wasn't great even if you divorce yourself from those segments; things are too dumb and nonsensical & it's not as crazy as you'd expect given the amazing (and bonkers) premise.