Day of the Animals

Day of the Animals (1977)

Runtime: 97 minutes

Directed by: William Girdler

Starring: Christopher George, Lynda Day George, Leslie Nielsen, Richard Jaeckel, Michael Ansara

From: Film Ventures International

Come for the animal attacks, stay for Leslie Nielsen’s increasingly unhinged performance.

For years I’ve known of this motion picture, especially one element which I dare not spoil except to say it involves Nielsen and was as glorious as advertised. Finally, the inspiration struck me last night to press “play”, which is what I did on Shudder; what I got was a film full of “70’s moments”, along with a nice get on their part by having Lalo Schifrin contribute an eerie, menacing score.

Various people (perhaps too many? That could be argued) are hiking in a lovely area of Central California; specifically, via helicopter they are transported to the TOP of a mountain then they hike their way down—which is still a grueling trek. What miserable luck then that at this time, the ozone layer has rapidly depleted (the movie isn’t exactly scientifically accurate, but more on that later) and this causes animals to go berserk above 5,000 feet in elevation. Birds, mountain lions, bears, coyotes, snakes and even dogs start attacking humans.

The action doesn’t start right away; rather, time is spent getting to know the various characters. They typically don’t raise above stereotypes although they were usually amusing stereotypes to me. Nielsen’s character was the true highlight; right away he’s shown to be a dick by making condescending and prejudicial comments to the Native American guide. His behavior then becomes worse-much worse.

Schlocky B-movie entertainment this may be (it was a Rifftrax episode although I didn’t think the movie was THAT bad or had enough campy moments to eviscerate), yet I still appreciated the downbeat moments and various members of the cast passing away in gruesome ways via effects that typically looked fine for the time. The rural California setting (whether forest or a bucolic little rustic town) was visually delightful and those that enjoy “animals run amok” pictures likely will have those same feelings while watching this.

One last note: while the ozone layer thing was done as a plot device rather than for any ecological concerns on the part of director William Girdler, bringing attention to what had just become a hot-button issue at the time (and still was when I was a kid) is not something I can fault. Thankfully in the subsequent years due to the banning of many aerosol cans, the depletion of the ozone layer has either slowed down or stopped completely. As it blocks UV light that otherwise would harm all life on Earth-although it shouldn’t cause them to flip their s***-this was why so many were concerned about it at the time.