WILD BEASTS
Trash Palace DVD-R
I had been wanting to see this one for awhile and finally got a great copy from Trash Palace. Director Franco Prosperi had previously done the famous MONDO CANE and the controversial time traveling documentary/ black anger comedy FAREWELL UNCLE TOM so I suppose a revenge of nature message flick is not too much of a stretch. After a quote about our madness affecting animals and children, it begins in what looks like a city in Germany and right off the bat we meet a blind composer with a German Shepherd. Man these blind guys seem to pop up in a lot of Italian exploitation movies. But this one wants to make sure that you, the viewer, understand that this sleazy flick has a message: nature weeps. That's the name of the piece he is working on. We also meet Laura, a single mom raising a tween daughter and Rupert, a zoo director. Rupert looks a lot like Yanni. There's some talk of parenting and animals and animal parenting to hammer home the message. There's more coming if you didn't get enough of that then.
But what we are really here for are the animal attacks and pretty quick we get our first when a couple out fucking in a car are attacked by rats. Before you know it the zoo animals are going apeshit and the automated cages go haywire and open up. Coincidentally, the old guy at the zoo had just been complaining about machines and modernization. So elephants, tigers and bears all escape and head out to get the plot going. For all our readers who are members of P.E.T.A., man are you guys dicks. And you're really gonna hate the scene where they set actual rats on fire. Talk about weeping nature! Laura meanwhile goes to a lecture about man not accepting nature and wanting to violate it. I guess that's what Prosperi is getting at, even though he set a bunch of live rats on fire. More attacks happen as the night drags on, the highlight being the cheetah chasing the woman in the convertible. It's very well done for the sort of thing and actually turns into an action movie car chase piece. It's a given that the blind composer is killed by his dog and there's a fairly fun elephant stepping on a guy's head scene. Laura's disobedient daughter has been at ballet class this whole night which can only lead to a polar bear attack. Elephants on the runway cause an airliner crash and knock out the power, almost going Irwin Allen on us. A bargain Italian Irwin Allen with no George Kennedy, but still. There's some more Mondo style animal on animal violence, a cattle stampede, and some more tigers as the situation worsens citywide. You gotta hand to Prosperi for just saying "fuck it, I wanna a plane, she go boom and moo cows, more moo-a cows they runna everywhere!" After the polar bear attacks the ballet class, (yeah, that's what I said) Rupert figures out all the animals have been poisoned by that great early eighties drug myth, P.C.P. Somehow it got in the water supply that strangely enough only the animals drank. But wait, wasn't that water the kids in the ballet class were drinking? All except Laura's kid, who drank a coke. Yeah, the ballet kids got hopped and got the knives out on the teacher. Laura saves her daughter and locks up the drugged psycho kids, while saying "please God, help us". The ballet school was full of mounted wildlife for no good reason. There were stuffed foxes and cats everywhere. The psycho kid thing was fairly restrained and could've been a lot sleazier. Speaking of sleazy, I read Prosperi had got in trouble for having some underage naked girls in his hotel room once. In the beginning of this flick he has Laura's daughter topless and in underwear for no reason, other than he maybe likes young girls. That's Europe for you.