Day of the Animals
|
List Price: Our Price: $10.66 You Save: $6.28 (37%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $8.00 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Day of the Animals
Movie Review: Day the animals went uppity and Leslie Nielson downed the uppity!
Summary: 3 Stars
To me the most notable actor here was Leslie Nielson in stark contrast to his 1980's-90s(and now) comedy roles, he used to always be typecast as a "heavy"(army hardened) or tough guy. He plays gruff roles as well as slap stick.(usually his slap stick involves others being the butt end(O. J. Simpson being done the grizzliest HA! HA! HA!!!) but as not to review a single actor the rest of the movie was in the late 70's grizzly(not the movie), no holds bar for not only blood but detailed organ and intestinal tract flinging. Before CGI it was actually quite creepy, not anymore, movies nowadays(with CGI) aren't near as creepy! A bunch of sissy-boy/girl hikers go up some northern woodsy romp and are shown the ends of what they are made of by the animals who reside there. some succomb to the animal nature, and not just the "bad" guy, played by Neilson, a few other "goodies' too. It puts a good light on a theme, libral or not(and what is wrong with that when your sun turns white!?) since the cosmic radiatoin is leaking through owr sky, we(and the animals of less intellences) become at first irritable(and like most of the creeps on Jerry Springer and court TV) eventually succomb to thier animalistic nature and start slaying each other until the end of the world(which isn't established in this B-rate film!) since the animals go berzerk first, the people become bloody victims , begin to see only procreation and distruction and under the strain of a hostile planet now bombarded by cosmic rays(my scientific veiw anyway) go completely insane and start commiting about "birds can eat your eyes out, fine stay here!) to one's own wife and finally killing each other out right. The End of the World is Nigh! The theme of this movie it can't be compared to "Grizzly", a small time bear, how can people so compare it???!Movie Review: Yet another 70's late night flashback!
Summary: 3 Stars
The first time I saw this one I was 11 and "The Night Stalker" had just gone off on the C.B.S. late night movie and this was next. At the time, the movie was fresh and seemed like it could happen(the 70's were a very negative time when things like the future were brought up) and I really enjoyed this cheesy film.
Now almost 40(and proud to have made it past the atomic wars, bio-hazards, alien invasions,and the attack of the Bee Gees) I find that this little slice of environmental nightmare still holds a strange hold on me. Christopher George(the poor man's Charlton Heston) never looked tougher than he did here leading hikers down a mountain as the missing ozone(remember that) allowed cosmic rays to fry animals and human brains if you were to high up(talk about a rocky mountain high). Long before his rebirth as everyone's favorite goofy actor Leslie Nielsen gives us his turn as the jerk who wants to take over and becomes power mad(he even fights a bear)and it's so over the top that you can see why they cast him in "Airplane". The movie is like an old friend, it doesn't surprise you,it's not Shakespeare, it's drive-in movie making at it's glory(If you don't know about drive-in's then you have missed a prime piece of Americana). Not for all taste, but if you are over 35 you will feel a little tug at the old memory watching this one.
Movie Review: Girdler curdler.
Summary: 3 Stars
It's somewhat unnerving watching this with the cat on your lap. I had a stun gun ready in case it got any 'ideas'.
BE WARNED: The two transfers have the euphemisms 'pristine' and 'vintage' applied to them on the back cover. Unfortunately, the latter was the 2.35:1 print I'd been looking forward to. It is quite terrible with scratches, crackly sound and a chunk of dialogue missing. Perversly, it is a sharper picture than the 1.85:1 transfer which is matted fullscreen. I guess if nothing but a battered print of the cult classic 'The Hills Have Eyes' could be found, one shouldn't be overly surprised. Curiously, Girdler's 'The Manitou' has a great R2 DVD release, but maybe that had studio backing or something.
This is a childhood flick that seemed harrowing at the time but is, ahem, less so now. Nevertheless, it's still a lot of fun and thoroughly nasty. Worth catching for the flying rats and the demented scenes with Leslie Nielsen.
Movie Review: William Girdler Strikes Again
Summary: 3 Stars
William Girdler director of Grizzly and The Manitou goes off into the forest again with Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel.This time due to the depletion of the ozone layer the animals tend to go a bit crazy and start attacking people.Starting off with a bunch of people going for a hike where one by one they are slowly picked off not just by the animals but also by the Leslie Nielsen character who seems to go psycho , he ends up taking on a bear (might be the same one from Grizzly)single-handed which of course he loses against.The kind of movie you put on a Sunday afternoon with a box of popcorn and have a few laughs with.It is a shame William Girdler died so young , I do believe he would have become a major Hollywood director in time as can be seen in some of the shots done in this film and Grizzly.Movie Review: Leslie put the rug down and come over here
Summary: 2 Stars
Day of the Animals: 4 out of 10: Filmed in glare-o-vision (either to emulate a world without ozone or to give me a headache) Day of the Animals ask what if all the animals went crazy and decided to work together to kill B-movie actors. Hmm.
Most nature gone wild movies focus on one deadly animal (Deadly Scorpions becoming giant deadly scorpions; industrious ants becoming giant industrious ants; cute bunny rabbits becoming Giant Cute bunny rabbits.
Day of the Animals, like its predecessor Frogs, takes a different tack. It throws every living creature at the cast. (Though in Day of the Animals defense unlike Frogs it at least sticks to animals, no one gets killed by the Spanish moss.)
It doesn't work. It really doesn't work. The animal attacks are laughable. Rats and snakes on fishing lines are thrown at actors. A shirtless Leslie Nielson who gets attacked by a bear rug in a scene right out of that killer carpet movie The Creeping Terror. And, most laughably, are the so called attacking dogs. Whom are downright lovable complete with wagging tails. (I've seen Benji look fiercer than those German shepherds whom looked every bit like they were chasing a miniature chuck wagon.)
As for the acting, well you get a shirtless Leslie Nielson hamming it up (years before he did Airplane and "went" into comedy) and Jon Cedar channeling a third rate William Shatner singing Barry Manilow (you won't be able to get that Mandy tune out of your head.)
The film in fact has plenty of cannon fodder (even that old comedic and anti-Semitic stand-by the overprotective Jewish mother played by Ruth Roman like she was directed by Leni Riefenstahl). It even has the Poseidon Adventure scene when one pig-headed group splits off from the other.
Day of the Animals also has the worst DVD transfer ever. A third rate pan and scan picture and no chapters or even a title screen. And unlike its companion piece Grizzly it needed a good transfer. After all it's filmed in glare-o-vision.