Roar is, without question, the cinematic rediscovery of 2015. A movie made with little regard for anybodys safety (as the tagline goes: No animals in were harmed in the making over 70 members of the cast and crew were!), its the result of pure psychosis on the part of then power couple Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren. An action-adventure riff turned oddball slasher (with live lions taking the place of a masked maniac), Roar follows a wildlife preservationist (Marhsall) who amicably exists in a tiny home with over one hundred untamed animals including cheetahs, elephants, lions and tigers. When his family (including a pre-facial reconstruction Melanie Griffith) arrives, they find themselves the prey of this relentless pack. Drafthouse Films have yet again unleashed a gonzo bit of genre film, fit to be experienced with a crowd of unprepared souls.
As fate would have it, Drafthouse isnt the only company interested in revisiting the animals attack! subgenre, as Scream Factory are also unleashing a dual offering of double features, each of the four films (Food of the Gods/Frogs & Empire of the Ants/Jaws of Satan) sporting a different genus waiting to wipe humans clean from the planet. So what better time is there to put together a starter list of suggestions for those who want to delve deeper into this less championed corner of scream cinema. Here are ten essential When Animals Attack! motion pictures.
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Jacob Knight is an Austin, Texas based film writer who moonlights as a clerk at Vulcan Video, one of the last great independent video stores in the US. You can find find him on Twitter @JacobQKnight.
Animals Attack!
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Animals Attack! #1
Black Zoo [1963] (d. Robert Gordon, w. Herman Cohen)
Sometimes, the animals in these films aren’t simple murder machines, rampaging about and massacring humans willy-nilly. People can also harness the power of killer animals to do their own nefarious bidding, as is the case with Robert Gordon’s 1963 cult/killer animal movie, Black Zoo. Michael Conrad (Michael Gough) owns Conrad's Animal Kingdom, a private zoo that doubles as a gathering ground for his followers, all of whom literally worship the animals who call the Kingdom home. The most revered beasts are the big cats: a lion, a lioness, a pair of cheetahs, a tiger, and a black panther. Conrad cares for the animals day and night, going as far as to play organ music for them in his living room. But this isn’t simply an act of strange devotion, as Conrad also wields the beasts as weapons, with which he can kill anyone who questions his odd way of living. Gordon’s direction echoes William Castle’s work with Vincent Price; a kind of gothic throwback that knows full well it’s operating in a heightened, freak out state. Black Zoo is unnerving and strange, as Conrad slips further and further into madness, going as far as to have his mute son (Rod Lauren) assist him against his will. For those looking for a spin on the usual tropes, with a little old school flair added in. Available now on DVD from Warner Archive.
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Animals Attack! #2
Food of the Gods [1976] (d. & w. Bert I. Gordon)
Man’s meddling with nature often plays a large part in the “animals attack” horror subgenre, and none quite capitalize on this finger-wag moralizing like Food of the Gods. Director Bert Gordon (Village of the Giants, Earth vs. the Giant Spider) adapts portions of HG Wells’ cautionary novel (“The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth”) with an eye for monster movie iconography, unleashing a swarm of giant wasps and a pack of king-size rats loose on a professional football player (Marjoe Gortner) vacationing in British Columbia. Turns out all of the local animals have been chowing down on a mysterious substance that has bubbled to the surface, which was then bottled and fed to chickens by the Skinners, a pair of local farmers (John McLiam and Ida Lupino). Ecology is taking its revenge on greedy humans who hope to market this new “gift from God” (as Mrs. Skinner calls it), inadvertently resulting in a mass vermin conspiracy to wipe out the local human population. The creature effects have that delightful 70s cheesiness fit for drive-ins, and Gordon knows a good cliffhanger when he sees one (tainted milk leads to rude oversized children in the loose 1989 sequel, Gnaw: Food of the Gods II). Indulge in the schlockiness with a killer double feature disc from Scream Factory that pairs the picture with Frogs (1972).
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Animals Attack! #3
Grizzly [1976] (d. William Girdler, w. Harvey Flaxman & David Sheldon)
William Girdler was a really weird filmmaker. Churning out nine movies in a six-year span, he made his exploitation pictures fast and cheap while marching to the beat of his own drummer (a rhythm that unfortunately found the filmmaker dead at thirty due to a helicopter accident in the Philippines). A few became notorious (like Abby, his Blaxploitation Exorcist riff), while others are still best enjoyed with a rowdy crowd and a few beers. Grizzly is probably the goofiest picture in the director’s body of work, pitting Christopher George (Pieces) against a fifteen foot tall bear. Another Jaws riff (sensing a trend here?), Girdler even went as far as to have Susan Backlinie (who was yanked underwater in Spielberg’s iconic opening sequence) appear as one of the titular monster’s victims. Funnily enough, two live bears were used to portray the killer...except for when “Teddy” (the beast’s on set nickname) carried out his acts of mindless violence. The murders and mauling were perpetrated by a man in a bear costume, adding a hilarious level of campiness to the proceedings. Girdler was the king of huckster nonsense, and it’s a shame he didn’t live longer and give us more of these bonkers horror pictures.
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Animals Attack! #4
The Pack [1977] (d. & w. Robert Clouse)
The Pack delivers exactly what any fan of the “animals attack” subgenre would want, including a stoic Joe Don Baker (Walking Tall, The Outfit) performance that sits well in his canon of Southern authority figure caricatures. Threadbare in terms of plot, yet totally thrilling when it comes to atmospherics (Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse makes even the brightest of daylight seem completely menacing), the biggest question on just about anybody’s mind once the credits roll will probably be: “how the hell did they get those dogs to actually act?” The beasts that make up the roving, bloodthirsty titular menace are injected with legitimate character traits, each one feeling distinct from the next. It’s a testament to Clouse being attentive to details, even when making a rather lowdown bit of B-Movie fare. These aren’t CGI creations, meticulously rendered by a team of artists wanting to replicate how they think dogs act; rather living, breathing mongrels who had to be tamed by an on-set trainer. In an era of effects-driven nonsense, the practical nature of The Pack feels raw and immediate, lending the picture a rather unique texture and air. Now available on DVD from Warner Archive.
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Animals Attack! #5
Long Weekend [1978] (d. Colin Eggleston, w. Everett De Roche)
When people think “Ozploitation”, their recollections usually involve multiple cars crashing through everything they come across. But Colin Eggleston’s Long Weekend takes all of the bombast out of Oz and replaces it with a creeping, inescapable dread. Ostensibly a character piece about a married couple (John Hargreaves and Briony Behets) whose union is on the rocks, we watch these two bickering human beings trample nature at every turn as they head for a beachside camping trip. Once the creatures who spy on them from the trees begin to swoop down, disrupting the idyllic setting, it feels like revenge for the thousand cuts the couple have inflicted upon Mother Nature. Screenwriter Everett De Roche was a staple of the 70s and 80s Aussie genre boom, writing several of the nation’s best pictures (including two different entries on this list!). But Long Weekend is possibly his best screenplay, full of nuance and nightmarish terror in equal measure. Now available on a beautiful restored Blu from Synapse Films.
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Animals Attack! #6
Prophecy [1979] (d. John Frankenheimer, w. David Seltzer)
Writer David Seltzer is best known for penning Richard Donner’s The Omen in 1976, Prophecy might actually be the most entertaining motion picture he ever put his name on. Helmed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, The Train), Prophecy chronicles the insane exploits of a mutated mama bear, out to maul near every person in her path. Boasting an awesome cast that includes Talia Shire (Rocky, The Godfather) and Armand Assante (Judge Dredd), Frankenheimer’s film also features the best sleeping bag slaughter this side of Jason Voorhees. Incredibly silly but also containing the power to scare an audience shitless, this killer bear picture will make you think twice about going into any wooded area near a contaminated paper mill.
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Animals Attack! #7
Great White (a/k/a The Last Shark) [1981] (d. Enzo Castellari, w. Vincenzo Mannino & Marc Princi)
The movie Universal never ever wanted you to see (seriously, they legally attempted to never let it reach American shores for decades), Enzo Castellari’s notorious Jaws rip off is bonkers in the way only the Italians were capable of during the 70s and 80s. Featuring a shark that literally explodes out of the water every time you see it (wait until it takes down a wind surfer like a goddamn flesh torpedo), there’s no shame whatsoever in Castellari’s game. Instead of Roy Schedier and Robert Shaw, we get James Franciscus (Beneath the Planet of the Apes) and Vic Morrow (in one of his final roles before tragically dying on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie) hunting down this ultimate eating machine. By no means a “good” movie in any traditional sense of the word, Great White is still a hoot and half; a reminder that even cheap imitations can still knock you on your ass.
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Animals Attack! #8
Jaws of Satan [1981] (d. Bob Claver, w. Gerry Holland)
Fritz Weaver had quite the career as a horror character actor, appearing in genre classics like George Romero’s Creepshow (as Dexter Stanley in “The Crate” segment), minor memories such as two episodes of Tales From the Darkside, and the 1977 Julie Christie computer rape opus, Demon Seed. Perhaps his weirdest turn came as Father Tom Farrow in the 1981 psycho snake transmission, Jaws of Satan. Father Farrow is a man whose existence is haunted by a druid curse and who may or may not be currently battling a slithering incarnation of the Prince of Darkness Himself. Jaws of Satan is B-Movie cheese to the bone, but watching Weaver try and wrangle the hissing, spitting cobra from hell is sure to give anyone who is afraid of scaly reptiles the heebie jeebies. A unique spin on the “killer animal” formula (with Dean Cundey photography to boot), Bob Cleaver’s picture never overdoes the supernatural element, keeping the audience guessing as to whether or not the venomous vermin is anything more than a loosed, rampaging killer, unleashed by man’s laziness. Either way, you’ll be checking the corners of your home for days after watching, as the beast gets into those places you least expect a venomous snake to inhabit. Now available on a double feature blu (with Empire of the Ants!) from Scream Factory.
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Animals Attack! #9
White Dog [1982] (d. Samuel Fuller, w. Curtis Hanson & Samuel Fuller)
Legendary filmmaker Samuel Fuller’s final Hollywood film is also the absolute strangest of his career. The story of a racist German Shepard rescued by a struggling Los Angeles starlet (Kristy McNichol), White Dog is an on-the-nose, but nevertheless affecting moral parable about the dangers of prejudice. Paul Winfield steals the entire show as a black animal trainer, out to the break the dog of the murderous habits its previous masters trained the beast to indulge. This may all sound incredibly silly on paper, but White Dog is harrowing, climaxing with a bleak finale that is one of Fuller’s best (and also got the movie shelved by Paramount for years on account of NAACP complaints). Trigger warnings galore, but if you’re in the mood to have your buttons pushed, it’d be a solid idea to pick up the Criterion Collection edition of this oft-overlooked bizarro masterwork.
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Animals Attack! #10
Razorback [1984] (d. Russell Mulcahy, w. Everett De Roche)
Russell Mulcahy’s background as a music video director is evident in every frame of his 1984 rampaging boar slice of psychedelia, Razorback. From the hallucinatory journeys through the Outback, to the blue-hued showdown with the tusked hog at the film’s finale, there’s an overly stylized element to Mulcahy’s direction that keeps the movie rooted in some kind of alternate fantasy vision of Australia. Arguably the most beautiful motion picture to emerge from the “Ozploitation” boom, it’s a shame Mulchay went on to become more known for Highlander than this superior bit of Down Under oddness. Razorback is undoubtedly the best killer pig movie you’ve probably never seen, and demands to be discovered by more and more horror fans ready to champion its grotesquely wonderful existence. Now available via Warner Archive.
