Wild Beasts (1983): Animals are fucking up!

Ladies and gentlemen, please don't get your animals all dusted.


Mmm, classy Franco, classy. This is why they hate us.


Wild Beasts is one of those movies with a fantastic premise and a so-so execution. That's not to say it's terrible, in fact Wild Beasts is nothing if not watchable. The animal attacks (with a couple exceptions) are not terribly interesting, but the preponderance of beefy euro-staches, the ridiculous dub script, and the general silliness make Wild Beasts worthwhile.

The setup is dealt with subtly in the opening credits. We get some smooth jazz, subdued shots of a city in the morning, and lots of running water footage. Mixed in with this are images of used syringes and garbage floating around near open drains. The movie doesn't directly spell things out until later, but basically PCP has gotten into the city's water supply, and from there found its way to the zoo animals' drinking supply. In short order they go nuts and decide to break out and kill some honkies.



This is basically a montage. What I just did.


One complaint I had with the movie is that if PCP infected an entire city's water supply there'd be a lot more to worry about than a few addled animals. The movie does address these possibilities briefly since a group of children end up drinking the cuckoo water, but unfortunately this subplot is handled pretty unsatisfactorily.

Fuck that though, I've already written too much, Wild Beasts doesn't need an essay, it needs a best-of compilation:


This smarmy turd is the main character and his mustache sets the standard for all the other male characters in Wild Beasts. Wild Beasts has been called out for animal cruelty by critics, and indeed it does appear that they doped up the tiger in the beginning of the clip for no real reason other than to get some classy twitch footage.



This clip, besides possibly being illegal, is the first appearance of the main characters' daughter. She is hideously odd and annoying, carries a shrieking frog doll with her and talks like a robot more often than not.



footage of the escape, plus a lil something for the ladies ;)



another intelligent conversation between our leads



oh yeah, this is what you came for: an awesome cheetah chase!



Weird girl has a weird chat with mom, shrieking frog makes an appearance



This is the other animal attack highlight, this time with elephants and shaky cams!



More of the animal cruelty so beloved of the italians



God I love when scientists explain the vagaries of PCP



Yeah, I don't think that's a real quote