Scott LeBrun Five young adults head into the wilderness for a weekend hiking excursion. But things go wrong in a hurry when they are targeted by a bloodthirsty creature. They make their way to an isolated cabin where a few other people (that have previously encountered the creature) are already holed up, in the tradition of "Night of the Living Dead" and "The Evil Dead".What we have here is an ultra-routine and ultra-familiar monster movie horror flick. Granted, sometimes a film can still work despite rigidly following a formula, but that is not the case here. "Animal" does have some engaging moments of humanity, numerous jolts, passable FX work (but an unimaginative-looking monster), a generous amount of splatter, and characters who can be annoying but are more or less likeable. Of course, there ALWAYS has to be an a-hole in the bunch, the person who might have some good points to make, but is consistently a prick about it. Amaury Nolasco ("A Good Day to Die Hard") is stuck in this cliched role, and you keep waiting and waiting for something nasty to happen to him.The cast doesn't rise above the material, but they fare well enough. Keke Palmer ("Akeelah and the Bee"), who also sings one of the closing credits numbers, is this viewers' personal favourite. Hunky German actor Thorsten Kaye ('All My Children') is fine as the biggest badass among the men. Lovely veteran actress Joey Lauren Adams ("Chasing Amy") is just wasting her time here.An excellent music score by "TomandAndy" and a blazing pace (this is only 82 minutes long) also help to make "Animal" palatable, but it gets no points for an ending that is, like so many other things here, cliched.Produced by Drew Barrymores' company "Flower Films"!Five out of 10.

jlthornb51 Director Brett Simmons steps way over the line with this disgustingly horrific film. Shattering any boundary of good taste or cinematic restraints, he graphically depicts the slaughter of living human beings by a creature so terrifying it's beyond all description. The images shown in this film will haunt anyone who sees it for a lifetime and may even result in serious emotional trauma. This viewer was repelled by such visions of bloody mayhem and find the thought of a child ever being subjected inadvertently to them repugnant and immoral. There are simply limits to what should be shown as entertainment and directors have a responsibility to the general public to spare them undo and gratuitous suffering.

Coventry I didn't expect much from "Animal" and pretty much knew from beforehand that it was going to be a derivative and unoriginal backwoods creature-feature. And yet I still very much wanted to see it. Why? Because I previously watched writer/director Brett Simmons' 2011 horror film "Husk" and, even though that one was derivative and unoriginal as well, it was also an unpretentious and incredibly fast-paced horror throwback with some good moments of suspense and many grisly images. And guess what? "Animal" is exactly the same! I've rarely seen a more clichéd plot or more stereotypical characters, but at least the film is never boring and contains several good action sequences. A bunch of twenty-something friends head out for a weekend in the woods, in a remote area where one of them used to spent her summer vacations with her parents. Whilst still hiking, they are confronted with an unknown but extremely aggressive and ravenous type of predator that chases them into a ramshackle cabin. There, they are united with three others that are hiding from the monster. Various plans to outsmart the monster fail and meanwhile the intrigues between the dwindling group of survivors inside the cabin pile up. The script never bothers to explain what of monster/animal these poor suckers are up against. The beginning briefly hints at military involvement, when the group finds a soldier's backpack in the woods. The predator could be an experiment gone wrong, but it could also mean that someone had already tried to destroy it through military force but failed. We don't know and, frankly, I don't care because the creature is nicely gruesome and bloodthirsty. The kills could have been more rancid and gory as far as I'm concerned, though. I must also be getting very old, because I'm reading a lot of praising comments about the famous cast members, particularly the two leading ladies (Keke Palmer and Elizabeth Gillies) and some girl that has a very brief cameo at the very beginning, yet I don't know any of them. The only familiar face that I spotted was that of Joey Lauren Adams, and I know her because she starred in Kevin Smith's comedies back in the '90s… Yep, I must be getting very old.

mitchell-corey I thought this movie was just....amazing. I loved the tension and creature, the best 'ChillerFilms' movie yet. One of the best things about this movie is that it doesn't stick to stereotypes like the slut dying first. Not only was the slutty girl (Elizabeth Gillies) the only one to survive but she killed one of the creatures. She also rubbed dirt on herself and threw the shirt which proved that she isn't dumb like stereotype sluts are, she knew how to throw the creature off her scent. This movie also had some good humour within it, it makes you calm down and then BOOM the unexpected happens. The worst thing about this movie, it was only given a limited release, I personally believe it deserved a bigger release. And the rating for the movie here on IMDb is way too low. No wonder no-one wants to watch this movie, its rating is just under 5. It deserves a 6 or 7 at least. It could've got more if only they had some back-story for the creature in the film.