Simply Perfect

Overrated

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

After a football injury ended his career before it even began "Jarrett" (Marc Blucas) is now forced to work at a menial job with a boss who doesn't like him. His only respite is a bar where he goes to socialize with the owner "Jules" (Andy Comeau) and the waitress "Jane" (Eva Amurri Martino). One night a sexy young woman named "Nora" (Nicki Aycox) walks in and Jarrett is immediately attracted to her. Jane recognizes immediately that Nora is trouble and tries to warn Jarrett but her words fall on deaf ears. It appears that Nora has a unique malady which turns her into a ravenous beast similar to a werewolf and she wants Jarrett to be her new mate. Unfortunately, she already has a mate named "Vic" (Naveen Andrews) who she is desperately trying to escape from due to his cruelty and insane jealousy. Anyway, rather than disclose the entire details of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a pretty good low-budget horror film. Admittedly, the CGI wasn't that good but it had a good story and I liked the performances of Marc Blucas, Nicki Aycox and Naveen Andrews. However, I should probably caution viewers that there is quite a bit of sex and nudity which is certainly not appropriate for a general audience. Even so I thought it was a pretty good movie and I rate it as slightly above average.

Down on his luck working class zhlub Jarrett (a likable portrayal by Mark Blucas) meets and falls for lovely and enticing, but dangerous and mysterious young minx Nora (a nicely sassy performance by the alluring Nicki Aycox). Nora draws Jarrett into a dark and frightening netherworld where the predatory and animalistic side of human nature gets unleashed. Complications ensue when Nora's feral and possessive lover Vic (robustly played with lip-licking nasty relish by Naveen Andrews) arrives in town looking for her. Director Douglas Aarniokoski, working from an engrossing script by Craif Spector, relates the compelling story at a snappy pace, brings a dazzling hyper-kinetic style to the entertainingly low-rent material, firmly grounds the fantastic premise in a plausibly gritty and downbeat blue collar environment, delivers a handy helping of graphic gore, and provides a substantial amount of tasty female nudity and sizzling soft-core sex that gives the picture an extra scorching erotic charge. The sound acting from the capable cast helps a lot, with especially praiseworthy work by Blucas, Aycox, and Andrews in the leads, with sturdy support from Eva Amurri as sweet and smitten barmaid Jane, Andy Comeau as amiable bar owner Jules, and Bart Johnson as Jarrett's jerky boss Vaughn. The polished cinematography by Mark Williams gives the movie an impressive glossy look. Alan Brewer's throbbing tribal score does the pulse-pounding trick. Only the shoddy CGI monster f/x leave something to be desired. Good rubbishy fun.

They've been making bad movies ever since they started threading film through a camera, but I think today's terrible 21st century cinema is worse than it's ever been. Oh, those atrocious films of the past had huge holes in the plot, wooden acting, inept direction and poor production values. Modern motion pictures, however, also have those first 3 in spades and add a truly stunning level of incoherence on top. It's the difference between telling a story badly and not knowing how to tell a story at all. Animals is a sterling example of that, as I was left looking at the screen and wondering "What they hell is going on?" on a constant basis.Animals is a low-budget werewolf flick that features a lot of the pretty Nicki Aycox in the buff and nothing else of any value. Jarrett (Marc Blucas) is a former high school sports hero who blew his chance at success and is back in his home town of Reno, literally breaking rocks for a living at a cement factory. He spends pretty much every night at the dilapidated tavern of his buddy Jules (Andy Comeau) where he ludicrously refrains from flirting with cute waitress Jane (Eva Amurri). And if you think having three main characters whose first names all begin with "J" is a sign this script was written with all the skill of a 7 year old, you're absolutely right.In addition to those 3, there's a werewolf couple named Vic and Nora (Naveen Andrews and Nicki Aycox), and I'm fairly confident those names aren't an allusion to The Thin Man. They don't change with the phases of the moon but morph into these ghostly and somewhat horse faced werewolves whenever they feel like it. After Nora lures in a couple of dofuses for Vic to feed on, he just leaves her to go hang out in night clubs and hit on skanks. Nora wanders into Jules' bar and immediately starts hitting on Jarrett like he's a pin up girl and she's a sailor who's been at sea for 6 months. Jarrett and Nora start banging, she bites him and begins his transformation into a horse faced werewolf, Vic returns and wants Nora back…and you can guess where everything goes from there. Well, I hope you can guess. If you can't, you should probably sterilize yourself and thereby improve the gene pool.Marc Blucas was a major recurring character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Naveen Andrews was on Lost, for pity's sake. That they both went from that to doing this sort of incompetent, low rent trash should serve as a warning against going into the acting profession. That they're the two best performers in the cast isn't saying much, given that Aycox is only tolerable and the rest look and sound like key grips and best boys who got their roles after the real actors all came down with food poisoning.The direction of Douglas Aarniokoski is pathetic. He doesn't know how to establish characters, define their personalities or even frame a shot appropriately. When Jarrett and Nora have their first conversation in Jules' tavern, Aarniokoski has Aycox in the right background while he has one-fourth of Blucas' out of focus face in the left foreground. There's another tracking shot through Jules' bar that's so amateurish, I expected the camera guy to trip and fall in the middle of it. Aarniokoski also employs slow motion, fast motion and a host of other camera and editing tricks in such a haphazard fashion that it seems like there's something wrong with the DVD. And after a climactic battle of bargain-basement CGI werewolves, Aarniokoski wraps everything up with what appears to be a feminine hygiene commercial. I'm not kidding about that.If you cut out all the pointless digressions and pure nonsense, this 90 minute movie might be barely an hour long. That would still be an hour of your life wasted, so don't bother renting Animals.

Animals starts as down on luck washed up loser Jarrett (Marc Blucas) drowns his sorrows at his friend Jules (Andy Comeau) bar when an alluring stranger named Nora (Nicki Aycox) walks in, Nora show's interest in Jarrett & they end up sleeping together at his place. A rough night of sex leaves Jarrett with scratches & also late for work for which his boss fires him, even though Nora is seductive Jarrett's life begins to fall apart. Then a man named Vic (Naveen Andrews) turns up claiming that Nora is hers, after Nora leaves Jarrett begins to change as his basic animal instincts seem to be heightened. Jarrett discovers that Nora has infected him with the ability to awaken his deep animalistic desires, instincts & powers but at the cost of the craving for human blood...Directed by Douglas Aarniokoski this horror thriller was based on the novel Animals by John Skipp, I have not read the novel but by all accounts it's far superior to this filmed adaptation which is pretty bad to be honest. The basic concept & idea behind Animals is fairly original with some sort of infection that allows people to unleash their inner animal, be it that their sex drive is much higher or they are more aggressive to killing in cold blood for food. However the reasons behind this are all very ambiguous & unclear, is this some sort of disease or supernatural force? Even though you can call forth your inner animal that still doesn't explain why the affected are virtually invulnerable & can heal quickly, does it? How can Vic land on spiked railings & just get up & walk away? How can Jarrett be blown up in a car & by the following morning he's alive & well without so much as a scar? Animals tries to mix horror with a couple of gory death's & killer monster animals creatures with a few steamy sex scenes which are actually pretty tame & offer little more than some bare breast's. There's no background to the animals, who started it? How long has it been going on for? How many are able to change? At just under 90 minutes Animals doesn't exactly fly by, it's rather dull most of the time & Vic the main villain doesn't even get any significant screen time until the hour mark & it takes until the last ten or fifteen minutes before we see any transformations & the animal creatures coming out to play.The CGI computer effects are poor, when the animal creatures eventually appear at the end they look like cartoon ghost's & are not what I expected. There's a bit of gore, a throat is bitten out, there's some blood splatter, there are a couple of dead bloody bodies, there's a ripped-out heart & some flesh eating. There's a bit of nudity on show but nothing graphic, a few bare breast's & that's it. The film is rather flat & a bit dull to watch, I mean it's competent but forgettable.The IMDb says this had a budget of about $5,500,000 which surprises me, it looks a lot lower budget than that & it's no surprise that it has had trouble finding anyone to distribute it. Filmed in Utah & Reno. The acting is average, it's not great but it's tolerable.Animals is a disappointing attempt to mix horror & sex with a thriller styled plot that just doesn't work. Poor effects, a poor story with no background or reasoning & a predictable plot sink it without trace.