When the water system of a big European city is contaminated with the drug PCP, the animals run amok and attacks people. Because of a small earthquake the exotic animals of a local zoo gets free as well which includes everything from tigers to elephants. We follow the animal expert Dr. Ruphert Berner and journalist Laura Schwarz throughout this mayhem.

I have a soft spot for killer animal movies, there’s something enjoyable watching animals take revenge on all the wrong things we humans do to this world and to them. So a movie that shows a range of different animals that attacks people should be right up my alley.

Director Prosperi had experience working with animals prior to this movie from making a couple of infamous mondo movies including Goodbye Uncle Tom, Mondo Cane and Africa Addio. He creates a dark atmosphere and does a good job with this movie. Some of the animal attacks are good and I’m surprised at how much they where able to make the animals do since I’m sure they didn’t have a lot of time to film this. Some scenes does get a bit ridiculous however. It’s fun to see an elephant stomp on cars, but not quite as suspenseful to see it choke a person with his trunk.

Franco Prosperi’s Wild Beasts is an odd duck in every way. Sure, it’s just a normal killer animal-movie but it almost completely lacks a build-up, characters or any kind of engaging story – it’s just a lot of spectacular scenes of different animals attacking and killing people! What I understand of the story and some of the info I read about the movie before, PCP is leaked into the water and makes all the animals go crazy, most of them coming from the zoo. This means that tigers, lions, a cheetah, bears, elephants, rats… yes, even COWS, start to attack the humans in a lot of bloody and sometimes even gory ways.

Gary Tooze

February 2nd, 2017