Animal

RELEASED IN 2014 and directed by Brett Simmons, "Animal" is about a group of people who find shelter in an abandoned house in the remote Connecticut woods staving off some kind of mutated predator that picks 'em off one-by-one.

Cabin-in-the-woods horror has been done to death with a multiple different kind of monsters/creatures/villains (zombies, Jason, Bigfoot, vampires, wild dogs, mutated bears, flying creatures, psychos, etc.). I like these kinds of movies but to be effective they have to (1.) feature the proper staples and (2.) contain interesting subtext/mindfood. If they don't have the latter then they'll have to be exceptional with the former to make it worthwhile. The kinds of staples I'm talking about include excellent locations, great monster/creature/antagonist, quality characters, at least one alluring female, notable score/soundtrack and effective suspense build-up.

"Animals" features some of the requisite staples: quality sylvan locations (Connecticut); a superbly vicious-looking creature (which is a man-in-a-suit and not CGI); a decent cast; and curvy Elizabeth Gillies in a cute get-up (Keke Palmer too, if you prefer black women). While these attributes are good, they're not enough to elevate "Animal" from its hackneyed status (particularly since it's missing some of the required 'staples').

Yet it's not just the movie's staleness that holds it back. There's also dubious acting (note the unconvincing conversation of the white/black couple during the early hike), obvious plot holes (the flimsy wooden barricades that the formidable animal could obviously break through at any time), predictableness (like when the foil buys the farm), eye-rolling drama (the gay confession), clichés (the "final Friday girl" and the climactic scene) and not enough suspense build-up, although it has some.

The sad thing is that "Animal" was produced by Drew Barrymore and therefore had more funds than the typical cabin-in-the-woods slasher. If you haven't seen many of these movies then "Animal" is worth checking out. If not, I encourage you to see superior ones, even if several of them have much lower budgets, e.g. "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), "Friday the 13th I & II" (1980/1981) (actually, any of the Friday flicks), "Sasquatch Hunters" (2005), "Sasquatch Mountain" (2006), "The Lonely Ones" (2006) and "Flu Bird Horror" (2008) to name a handful ("The Lonely Ones" is a no-budget indie, but it's great in some ways; stay away, though, if you can't handle barely-a-budget horror). One thing's for sure, "Animal" is vastly superior to the lame, trashy "Cabin Fever" (2002).

One last thing: Some have criticized the movie on the grounds that the creature's origins are never revealed. No, there are two blatant clues revealing its genesis.

THE FILM RUNS 86 minutes and was shot in Hartford & Manchester, Connecticut. WRITERS: Thommy Hutson & Catherine Trillo. ADDITIONAL CAST: Parker Young, Jeremy Sumpter, Paul Iacono, Joey Lauren Adams, Thorsten Kaye and Amaury Nolasco.

GRADE: C

"Animal" is actually a fairly decent creature feature. Sure, the movie doesn't offer anything new to the genre. In fact, everything here has been seen before in other similar creature features.

But still, the movie was entertaining and thrilling. And when the movie offers nothing new and is essentially fully a movie much similar to every other creature feature, then what makes it stand out? Well, because the movie follows the "how to make a creature feature" to the point. But it is the creature itself that makes the movie so interesting.

The creature in the movie is unique in appearance and the special effects team did manage to pull it off quite nicely. The creature looked like a strange mutation between a rodent and human of sorts. It did look realistic and was adding a great sense of terror to the movie.

While the creature alone would make for a boring movie, then the people on the cast were doing great jobs with their given roles and characters. And it is especially great that no one is safe and out of harms way. The movie does offer that sense of unpredictability, which adds to the suspense of the movie.

The movie is visually great, but also audibly great. The score is nice and very appropriate to the movie. But the sounds that the creature was making proved to be quite interesting, not to mention unnerving.

It would be great to have another movie made with this particular breed of creature. I can recommend "Animal" if you enjoy a good old fashioned styled creature feature horror movie.

Had it not been for the unnecessary drama in the cabin this could have been a have decent creature feature. Instead to was reduced to every cliché of every horror movie. Why do writers get so lazy?

A group of five twenty-somethings head out into the deep woods for what seems to be a hundred mile hike. When night falls, they realize that something big, hairy, and extremely dangerous is in the forest with them. Blood-spraying death soon follows.

Finding an occupied, barricaded cabin, the hikers take refuge with the three already inside, while the beast terrorizes them. Of course, all is not as it appears to be, and secrets are being kept.

ANIMAL is a monster movie, plain and simple. The plot is basic. The characters are disposable. What makes this movie watchable is the -practical effects!- creature of the title. Underused, it is a welcome sight whenever it shows up to grab another tasty human to snack on!

For lovers of the genre...

Passable acting, passable action, passable script. Plot... well, it is a predatory animal in the forest survival horror, and how much of a plot would you usually expect? As usual the heroes (fodder) are a little on the dim side, forgoing (as is too often the case) arming themselves and trusting far too much in defense, defense, DEFENSE as they get picked off, but while there is nothing exceptional here there is also nothing that is a total deal breaker for the genre. The only really redeeming thing is there is a decent job of effects. Considering the low budget they did not do a bad job with that. All in all it is worthy of a watch if you are bored and have nothing better to do, but don't take that as a recommendation either... in the end it is still just passable.