Retinend This documentary about the death of a group of zoophiles whose club disbanded with the death of a Boeing engineer, "Mr. Hands," illustrates phone interviews with the perpetrators with dreamy imagery of dew- sprayed orchards, rolling mid-western highways and slow motion panoramas of farmstead porches. The film makes no judgement of the men, who were not found guilty of any crime due to the niceties of state-specific lawmaking. The love of horses is portrayed as a mystical, philosophical longing to connect with nature. A dissenting voice, an investigator who first visited the scene of the non-crime, gives her reaction of horror and sympathy for the animals, but her case is not strongly made, since the sordid details are left out of the film. By so emphasizing the mystical-philosophic- longing-nature side of things, the film seems unnaturally sanitized and the elephant in the room looms large throughout (probably with its back to the wall): Watch the infamous video and you see a man with a manifold metal-studded ballsack eagerly prostrating himself in front of a member the size of a man's extended arm. The horse's penis is guided into Mr. Hands by a second man who asks "yeah, you like that, don't you?" in a lascivious tone, to the man soon to die. In the film, Mr. Hands is portrayed as a family man who had a bright future... I find it more convincing that he had a strong drive towards death, and that at least his sexual being was pleased to die in this way.My negative opinion of this film is not so much about its filmic aspects, but of its morality. Sure, the film does not explicitly endorse what these people did. However, I find the film perverse in its avoidance of simple questions that spring to most peoples' minds: what did they do with the horses? what sexual history did these men have? how did they get started? Typical of over-intellectualized analyses, these simple questions are discarded in favour of equivocation and obfuscation of the moral matter.Outside of these general questions, specific questions posed by the interviews themselves are unanswered or obfuscated by a chronology that seemed to have been cut up and stuck back together at random for a shallow intellectual effect. Who is "Cop #2" and what film was he hired for? Who was the boy who died? Who did the horses belong to? How can two horses give and receive a blowjob? Were they trained to do it? I'm barely scratching the surface because so little of the historical information hinted at is given it's proper providence, and so falls easily out of memory.As its fundamental moral angle and narrative loose ends are so dissatisfying for me, that stylish visual elements and overall technical quality is abundant was more irritating than it was palliative, for me. I wondered even more, on account of this, why such a film could even be made by intelligent, resourceful and skilled filmmakers, without thought for what they were implicitly advocating. Still, for the quality and style alone it is a convincing package, but is the lush surface texture an indication of its profundity? A loud "neigh" from me.

luxinterior42 Well, a government operative loves horses, really loves them. He forgot to use a shim, and wound up taking "the whole thang". I'm not sure if the Affordable Care Act covers internal injuries inflicted from "farm accidents", but this guy didn't make it. Most of the people involved wouldn't agree to appear in this docudrama, however, one of the animal husbands actually played himself in the film. It's an interesting story, and kind of a PSA for those who might want to try this at home-use a spotter!! If you loved this film, you'll certainly love the Boner City USA podcast, where similar topics are covered on a twice weekly basis.

tieman64 It's a story as old as the hills: A man breaks into a farm, masturbates a horse to arousal and inserts the horse's penis into his anus. Sufficiently pleasured by the animal, the man returns the horse to its stable and drives back home. Days later, the man dies due to internal bleeding, the horse's penis having ruptured vital internal organs. We later learn that the man could have saved his life by checking into a hospital, but of course he was too embarrassed to have done so. He died, alone in his home, having been humped to death by a horse.Despite its sensationalist subject matter, this is a rather boring documentary. Not wanting to seem exploitative, the film-makers back away from their own material, too timid to ask any truly interesting questions.Why, for example, did horses fascinate the man? What is the appeal of bestiality? Is there such a thing as horse penis envy? Why was the horse not jailed for manslaughter? Is it possible for an animal to consent to having sex with a human? Why did the police charge the man with "coercing an animal into sex"? How exactly do you coerce such a huge and powerful animal into sex? Either the horse wants to do it, or it doesn't. Doesn't anyone notice the irony of a horse mounting a human being? But no, this documentary doesn't delve into anything interesting. There is one great shot, however, of a horse being elevated above an operating table and then later operated upon by a group of masked doctors. With its surreal juxtaposition between hospital gowns, antiseptic tiles, sterile medical equipment and a giant levitating horse, the sequence recalls several scenes in David Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers".6/10 - I watched this film thinking it was Frederick Wiseman's famous documentary, also called "Zoo", which examines the lives of the men and women working within an inner city zoo. But nope, it's about a guy who has sex with a horse. Kinky.Worth one viewing.

paul2001sw-1 On learning of a man who died of a perforated colon after sex with a horse, one is tempted to heartlessly nominate him for a Darwin award. Or to join with the radio show host, who commented after someone proposed making such acts illegal on grounds on non-consenuality - "it was a horse! how can it not have consented?". I would certainly have expected the world of zoophilia (the politically correct name for bestiality) to be all about the thrill of the (utterly) transgressive. But this documentary, in which a number of zoophiles involved in the incident defend their conduct, gives a different impression: of men (why only men?) whose sense of empathy with animals is so strong that a sexual relationship feels like a natural next step. Of course, one could criticise this film for letting them speak unchallenged: one would not allow paedophiles a similar platform, but if one regards desiring a consummated relationship with a horse as wholly baffling (a horse may be intelligent, but it's still just a horse), then the horse can hardly be seen as a victim in the same light as a human, and the opinions of the perpetrators are as fascinating as they are disturbing. On one hand, one's tempted to see zoophilia as a form of psychiatric disturbance; on the other, should people be persecuted for what they feel? Wikipedia quotes studies alleging that sexual contact with an animal is experienced by several percent of the population. I don't quite believe it, but in part, maybe that's just because my innocent mind still has problems imagining how it actually occurs.