6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
All hell breaks loose in the zoo of a German metropolis when the local drinking water gets contaminated by a large quantity of PCP, thus turning all formerly harmless animals into ferociously aggressive beasts. Crazed by a drug-induced blood rage, they break all barriers and soon enough prey on the unsuspecting population of the town. Now it's up to a ballsy scientist and a spunky reporter to save the day and the city.
Starring: Lorraine De Selle, Antonio Di Leo, Ugo Bologna, Louisa Lloyd, John StacyHorror | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.67:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Italian: Dolby Digital 2.0
BDInfo
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
For those who feel they may have seen the most outré possible film featuring wild animals and humans after having viewed Roar, guess what? There’s a little competition in the Blu-ray universe now that Wild Beasts has (have?) meandered into the fray. Wild Beasts has a fairly simple set up, which is followed by a similarly simple execution, detailing the carnage that ensues when a dangerous psychoactive drug gets mixed into a municipal water supply, animals (and, later, humans) get a gulp or two of it, and all hell breaks loose. There are any number of “killer animal” or “nature strikes back” films that Wild Beasts may seem to emulate (or even have inspired), but the film has a unique atmosphere that is perhaps appropriately hallucinogenic. Kind of interestingly given the recent controversy surrounding A Dog's Purpose, Wild Beasts comes from a somewhat infamous creative crew (which includes director Franco Prosperi), people who were already fairly notorious for depictions of animal cruelty in the so- called “mondo” genre, including such now legendary entries as Mondo Cane (the film that rather unexpectedly introduced the standard "More" into the pop music vernacular, resulting in an Academy Award nomination), that film’s follow up Mondo Cane 2, and Africa addio. These films, along with Prosperi’s Goodbye Uncle Tom later at least partially influenced films with even more troubling depictions of animal cruelty, including Cannibal Holocaust and its quasi follow up Cannibal Ferox, two films which seemed to almost delight (for want of a better word) in extremely graphic depictions of animals meeting their fate. Prosperi seems to want to revisit that exploitational aspect, if only tangentially (as will be discussed below), but the fascinating behind the scenes fact about Wild Beasts is that the big animals on display throughout the film were actually part of a circus, and their regular handlers were either in the film itself or close by, monitoring events.
Wild Beasts is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. This film was obviously shot on the fly under somewhat problematic circumstances, with (as mentioned in the supplements) the vast bulk of the sequences set at night, something that probably unavoidably leads to a lack of detail and especially fine detail at times. While colors are still vivid, there's slight fading which skews tones toward the brown side of things. A healthy grain field is in evidence in the more brightly lit moments, but is less evident in the many darker scenes, and I wouldn't be surprised if some judicious filtering has been applied. Occasional age related damage intrudes, but nothing out of the ordinary. The entire transfer has a soft look which is perfectly in keeping with what I assume the original theatrical exhibition (which I never saw) looked like.
As mentioned above in the main body of the review, Wild Beasts features both English and Italian audio tracks, with the English track in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and the Italian in Dolby Digital 2.0. While there's a genuine uptick in amplitude and fidelity in the lossless track, especially with regard to the score, both tracks suffer from boxiness and are obviously the result of post dubbing (a staple of Italian cinema, of course). The result is I personally found both tracks a little odd, for slightly different reasons. The obvious mismatch between lip movements and words spoken on both tracks would seem to indicate this was a multilingual cast doing the best they could (I frankly expected the Italian audio to match the lip movements more consistently, but it really didn't for whatever reason, and it does appear that at least some of the actors were speaking English, though the dubbing is pretty inartfully accomplished a lot of the time).
I can't imagine anyone ever being very frightened by Wild Beasts, despite several supposedly visceral attack scenes. The most discomfiting sequence for me involved rats attacking amorous couples, but even that was kind of darkly comic rather than scary. Had the whole "man raping the environment and getting his comeuppance" angle (something the trailer mentions up front) had been handled a little more effectively, the narrative may have had more impact. As well staged as some of the animal attack sequences are, I personally was never frightened by anything, and in fact found some of the goings on unintentionally comic. This lo-fi effort is odd, to say the least, and as with many of these cult offerings, it may well be the excellent supplemental material assembled by Severin that sways interested consumers. Video and audio both have certain inherent limitations, but nothing that would (if I might borrow an idea from the film) cause home theater aficionados to attack.
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