Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Month of Halloween horror - film #5: DAY OF THE ANIMALS



I found DAY OF THE ANIMALS (aka "Dyrene hævner") on Danish ex-rental VHS at last week's Bloody Weekend festival in Copenhagen. The fullscreen release from Warner is quite rare (I've never seen a copy before) so I grabbed it right away. The guy asked $17 for it which could have got me the DVD but, hey, the VHS is more collectable!!

The plot is something we've seen before, our feathered/furry/fourlegged friends have finally had it with humanity and decide to do something about it. And all this while a group of city-slickers decide to go for an extended walk in the mountains. Chaos, death and bloody carnage follow. And funny guy Leslie Nielsen gets less funny when he kills a young guy with a spear and sets out to rape the dead guy's girlfriend. Oh, AND SEE HIM WRESTLE A BEAR!!

Like I said we've seen it all before but DAY OF THE ANIMALS is well made and entertaining. Good performances all round, even the kids are good. Having said that, there was one dog that couldn't act his way out of a beer bottle. Christ, he was bad! But, hey, I forgive him, he probably had a bad day on the set.

Scandinavians ought to check out the release from AWE.
Posted by at
Labels: ,

4 comments:

  1. NekonekoOctober 11, 2012 at 12:48 AM

    I remember this one! It was one of a virtual avalanche of "killer animals run amok" that came out here in the US in the 70's. They were all sort of crazy and fun.

    Not bad as I recall, but my fav from that time had to be 1976's "Grizzly!!". Where else do you get to see a big ol' bear whacked by a bazooka at your climax? Hahahaha!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jack JOctober 11, 2012 at 1:05 AM

    I've always quite enjoyed the killer animal genre from the 70s. The frogs, the bees, the insects, the dogs, the escaped zoo animals, the what-have-you. LOL. I've never watched GRIZZLY but I seem to remember it was also directed by William Girdler who did DAY OF THE ANIMALS wasn't it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. NekonekoOctober 11, 2012 at 1:18 AM

    Yep.... now that you mention it, a quick look at IMDb tells me he did indeed direct both!! ;)

    I've always had a soft spot for the "homicidal animals" horror genre. So much fun... Sigh. They just don't seem to want to make them like these anymore. I'm glad to see I'm not the only fan...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jack JOctober 11, 2012 at 7:00 AM

    Ain't that the truth. As much as I enjoy popcorn filled afternoons with Roger Corman's new killer crock/dino/shark/octopus films they're just not the same. And no, you're certainly not the only fan. ^_^

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)