morrison-dylan-fan With a poll coming up on IMDbs Classic Film board for the best titles of 1984,I decided to take a look at a DVD sellers page,where I spotted a listing for what sounded like a bonkers Italian Horror movie,which led to me getting ready to go on a safari with the wild beats.The plot:Giving the animals their final food & water for the night,the zoo keepers lock the creatures up for the night.Unknown to the zoo keepers,the local water supply has been infected with PCP.As they look at the CCTV cameras,the keepers are horrified to see the animals start to act as if they have lost their minds. Attempting to calm the situation down,the animals end up breaking out of their cages,and running down the streets of Rome.As the keepers try to catch them all,the wild beasts cause havoc on the streets.View on the film:Inspired by an article co-writer/(along with Antonio Accolla) director Franco Prosperi read about a large supply of cocaine being hidden in the sewers of Italy,the screenplay by Prosperi & Accolla leaves anything like subtlety & depth behind,with the writers instead going for an all-out deranged smash and grab.Whilst the film does run out of steam during the "dialogue" scenes,the writers make sure that the insane gory set pieces come thick and fast,as the animal attacks go from a pack of rats ripping a young couple up, (how did Lucio Fulci not direct this?!) to a polar bear running down a school corridor,and a legendary cheetah chasing a car scene. Originally planning to film in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe),Prosperi had to change plans for Italy and South Africa,when terrorist groups starting shooting his hotel.Despite the filming troubles,Prosperi and cinematographer Guglielmo Mancori give the movie a vast scope,with the tower block giving the animals the perfect concrete jungle setting.Made on the cheap,Prosperi goes straight for the sleaze jugular,as the blood drenched animal attacks are matched by exposed female flesh and psychopathic children.Whilst some of the animal attacks do look hilariously poor,Prosperi shows a bit too much glee in the animal on animal attacks,with a scene of a fur ball being covered in rats being a really uncomfortable, grisly scene,as the beasts go wild.

Chase_Witherspoon An inner-city zoo's electrical lock-down security fails, resulting in a number of predators (made rabid by a contaminated water supply) being released to wreak havoc on the local community. It's up to animal expert De Selle and companion Aldrich (a John Oates look-a-like) to warn potential meals and lure the most dangerous, back to the confines of the habitat. Sounds engrossing but the execution is less compelling than the concept. The animal wranglers in this film deliver the goods, with plenty of menace displayed through flashing teeth and aggressive posturing; even some of the attacks look realistic (my personal favourite being the elephant destroying a car in which a pair of cowering bystanders had taken refuge).Aldrich starts off trying to lure De Selle into some animal husbandry of their own, but it seems there's some urgent taxidermy work to be done back at the lab. Meanwhile, De Selle (who survived Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust to appear in this film) is taunted by her precocious daughter, who narrowly escapes becoming a real little monster in the film's laughably devilish twist ending. Some truly innovative and in some cases comical methods are devised by which to cancel cast members (the rats attacking the bare-breasted woman shows that director Prosperi's sadomasochistic flair is on par with that of the Marquis de Sade) most of them transient, introduced solely for the purposes of being dispatched with grisly efficiency. By exception, veteran actor Ugo Bologna has a sizable supporting role as the concerned police inspector.But while the violence committed against the cast members is obviously staged (yes, even the rats picking out the eyes of the car-seat canoodlers isn't as real as it appears), the animals are spared no such reprieve, many of them slaughtered in shameless exploitation, a grossly damning indictment on the trend in Italian horror movies of that era. Stepping off the soap box for just a moment, "Wild Beasts" while obscure, isn't without interest and should appeal to anyone with a penchant for the eco-horror genre.

Steve Van Kooten Contains a little blood, one angry polar bear. The animals at a zoo start going crazy and it soon leads to all out mayhem once rats, cats, bears, and other beasts start attacking people all over the city. - - - Actually, this isn't a bad time at all! While there are some hurdles to get over with the dub job, this is a good example of to the point Italian horror. All of the characters are thrust into the plot immediately and have to do all of their explanation on the run, there's always a threat in every second of "Wild Beasts." The plot is conventional, but the sheer variety and number of animal attacks, running, screaming, and violence barely leaves any time for boring stuff like talking... or characterization. Not only is the movie enjoyable, but the cause of all the brouhaha is knee slapping hilarious. This isn't high art, but we can't expect every filmmaker to be Joe D'Amato can we? * * 1/2 out of 4

Wheatpenny Franco Prosperi must really get off on killing animals, between this and all the shockumentaries he's done. This one's got some great sequences (shot in Frankfurt-am-Main) but never lives up to its great premise. Filmed entirely at night, the direction is clumsy and only rarely suspenseful. It's never boring or predictable but not terribly exciting or original, either. Though if you've waited all your life to see a naked woman get eaten by rats, here's your chance.