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Day of the AnimalsRating:
Release Date: 29 January, 1999 Retail Price: $9.95 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (8 total) |
Day of the Animals Reviews
Day of the Animals
When a group of hikers are dropped off in the scenic Rocky Mountains, they intend to spend the day wandering back down the trails and taking in nature's beauty. Unfortunately, they are going to experience nature's brutality. You see our group of hikers have no idea that scientists have just discovered that a hole in the ozone layer is letting in radiation that is effecting all animals above 5,000 feet. Now our hikers must not only make it down the trails to safety, but they must also survive... the day of the animals!
Another critters gone crazy, but this time it's just not bears, birds, or snakes, but everything. Chipmunks, raccoons and even opossums, even deer and elk get to roam freely in the streets.
Our group of hikers consist of the jock, young newlywed couple, annoying old woman, hot babe and the ever popular prick played by Leslie Nielson. As our hikers wander down the trail animals of all kind begin to take them out one by one until only a few are left, but guess what, the radiation begins to effect the humans as well, so along with the animals they have to start watching out for each other as well.
The kills are really not that great but in the very beginning there is a decent vulture attack sequence and if you look closely at the screen you will notice the first victim is Susan Backline, who was the first victim in Jaws.
Day of the Animals came out around the same time as Kingdom of the Spiders and The Swarm which were all animals gone crazy movie, but this is probably the best of the bunch.
I would save your money on this one and borrow it from someone if you want to view it.
"There's no news story here, Ms. Anchorlady..."
An interesting thing I noticed...one review on Amazon for the film Day of the Animals (1977) states "Leslie "Airplane!" Neilson plays forest ranger Steve Buckner"...well, first of all it's Leslie `Nielsen', not `Neilson' (I should think at least the man deserves to get his name spelled correctly), and while he is in this film, he does not play the character of Steve Buckner...that role is played by Christopher George, something someone would have certainly known had they actually seen the film (they're the two main characters, and completely opposite of each other)...I certainly don't mean to get all nitpicky, but the review I'm referring to ends with person stating they're the author of a guide to animal movies...I hope the information in the guide is more accurate than the information in the review...directed by William Girdler (Abby, Grizzly, The Manitou), the film stars, as I've already mentioned, Christopher George (Dixie Dynamite, Grizzly) and Leslie Nielsen (Airplane!, Prom Night, Creepshow). Also appearing is Lynda Day George ("Mission: Impossible"), wife to lead actor Christopher George until his death in 1983, Richard Jaeckel (The Dirty Dozen, Grizzly), Michael Ansara (The Manitou), Ruth Roman (A Knife for the Ladies), Jon Cedar (Foxy Brown), Paul Mantee (The Great Santini), Susan Backlinie (Jaws), Walter Barnes (Pete's Dragon), and Andrew Stevens (The Fury, Death Hunt), certainly no stranger to the world of craptacular cinema.
The film begins with the display of text stating in 1974 some scientists discovered how the depletion of the ozone layer is allowing dangerous levels ultra violet rays to reach the Earth...and that the story about to be laid on us could actually happen if something isn't done to stop us from further damaging the protective shield surrounding our fragile planet. Next we see a group of people preparing to go on a hiking trip, lead by Steve Buckner (George)...let's see...there's an ad executive named Paul Jensen (Nielsen), television anchorwoman Terry Marsh (George), Professor Taylor MacGregor (Jaeckel), a Native American named Daniel Santee (Ansara), recent divorcee' Mrs. Shirley Goodwyn (Roman) and her son, married couple (slightly estranged) Frank (Cedar) and Mandy (Backlinie) Young, ex-football star Roy Moore (Mantee), and Bob Denning (Stevens) and his girlfriend...quite a diverse group...anyway, the group are taken to an area up the mountain and dropped off, but little do they realize the brutal nightmare that awaits as the animals are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore...oh yeah, it's go time...will they be able to get down the mountain without getting killed by the animals (or themselves)? Even if they do, will there be a town left to escape to? Let the fanged/clawed/beaked mayhem begin!
I'm no scientist (but I play one on TV), but this particular scenario in terms of the effect of ozone depletion seems pretty far-fetched...all the animals brains being cooked so that they turn on humans? But, since this is a movie, I went along for the ride...and quite the boring one it was...we don't even get our first attack until about a half hour into the movie...and even then it wasn't fatal...bah...the first human death occurs about 36 minutes in, and was the result of Ms. Backlinie's character being attacked by birds...a side note, she was the first victim in the films Jaws (1974)...you know the one, the skinny dipping girlie? As I said, the movie was fairly boring primarily because just when things would heat up, the flame would fizzle as the filmmakers subjected the audience to some lame and excruitiatingly pointless character development, you know, the touchy/feely crapola inherent in cruddy movies like this...the constantly complaining Jewish mother played by Roman was probably the worst...'Already my feet are killing me...a Danny Boone I'm not!'...oy vai! And if Christopher and Lynda Day George were married in real life at the time (they were), you certainly wouldn't know it on the screen as there wasn't any chemistry...his character did try to put the make on her a few times...rather poorly. I'm no Casanova, but heck, even I have better pick up skills than this goofus...oh, by the way, smart move taking a tour group deep into the woods and not carrying a weapon of some sort. There was just too many characters to try and flesh them out they way they did, resulting in cumbersome sequences of relatively dead screen time between actual events. Leslie Nielsen's arrogant, belligerent, antagonistic, racist character was fun to watch (count how many times he calls someone `hotshot'), especially once the stuff hit the fan and he began challenging Buckner over leadership of the group. Eventually the group splinters into two, Buckner leading one and Jensen leading another...what's even better is when Nielsen's character really begins to lose it, heaping aggressions onto his meager band of followers until a large bear shows up...to which a bare-chested, deranged Nielsen proceeds grapple with the hairy beast (guess who wins?). Overall the film is pretty much a mess, as it breaks down into three, separate stories for no reason whatsoever, causing a feeling of annoyance and unfocused direction, like someone was `winging' it...I wouldn't have minded it so much had the characters been interesting, but that wasn't the case. There is some bloodshed and violence, but not as much as I would have expected. The most worthwhile sequences feature, as I mentioned before, the ones that involve Nielsen (especially later on in the movie), but there was one other scene involving a man and flying rats in his kitchen...the man went to the kitchen in the middle of the night, removed a tray of food from the refrigerator, put it down for a few seconds, and when he came back it was covered in rats...and then the rats began jumping off the plate and onto his face...it looks pretty funny because it was obvious the rats were manipulated, perhaps with a string tied around them, to get the height the did...they appeared to fly. And then there's the ending...what a fizzle, my nizzles, fo schizzle...there was one superior aspect about this film and that was the original music by legendary composer Lalo Schifrin.
The picture quality, presented in fullscreen (1.33:1), on this Nutech Digital Inc. DVD release isn't great, but it is watchable...the colors are a bit flat, and there's some aging evident. The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio is about a good as the picture in that it is serviceable, but there were a couple of times I had difficulty in discerning the dialog. There are no special features, not even a menu, as the film begins once placed in the DVD player, and it is comprised of three chapters.
Cookieman108
If I've learned anything from this film it's that Andrew Stevens shouldn't be allowed to plat the harmonica...he really stinks.
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