[Animals]
Plot:Based on the Skipp and Spector book of the same name involves a man living in a dying smalltown who meets a woman with a dark secret and the lover who is pursuing her.

Cast:Marc Blucas, Nicki Aycox, Eva Amurri, Andy Corneau, Naveen Andrews.

My Thoughts:"Yawn"!

Review:"Animals" is a film adaptation of the Skipp and Spector novel, where a young man from a small town meets up with a mysterious woman who ends up changing his life forever. The movie is also another in a line of what I've coined "not really-wolf films". The opposite of the true werewolf movie. Like "Blood and Chocolate" for example, or for a more recent example, "Twilight", the so-called werewolves in this film are not werewolves persay, but moreso "not-really-wolves".

As in they bite, claw, kill, and scratch, but they aren't the hairy, drooling, intimidating beasts we've come to know from films like "The Howling", "Ginger Snaps", etc. This film basically gives us teeth and fanged people with some decent looking makeup effects. The pic starts off with a woman named Nora (Aycox), who's a werewolf. She lures in victims for her lover Vic (Andrews), who's also a werewolf, and who is Nora's lover so to speak.

It should be worth mentioning that Andrews character in this film, is similar to his character from Robert Rodroguez's "Planet Terror", in style of dress and character behaviors. Minus the patch though. At any rate, Vic sired Nora a werewolf, but Nora hates him, so she splits and ends up in a small hick town. Where she meets a not so bright smalltown jock type named Jarrett (Blucas). The two of course end up getting it on, and in the process, Nora turns Jarrett into a werewolf via a few bites and scratches.

Breaking horror film rule number one, never have relations with hot girls who just show up in town out of the blue. When will these crazy kids learn? Anyways, Vic finally tracks Nora down, thus sparring a showdown between Vic and Jarrett which threatens to wipe out a lot of innocent lives. This film can be summed up as a werewolf soap opera of sorts. Werewolf girl leaves werewolf guy. Werewolf girl finds new fling, who she makes a werewolf. Werewolf girl's old lover shows up to take her back with him.

Thus a fight between old lover and new lover. I feel like I've seen this before on the Lifetime channel. But this movie decides to add in the werewolf factor just to give it all a horror element. Which fails miserably considering the story and effects are so weak. Andrews and Aycox are good actors, but Blucas isn't. Sure, he was good as Riley Finn in "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", but wooden acting works when you're playing a military soldier type. Not anything outside of that.

Letting Blucas be the lead here was a huge mistake. Not to mention the characters outside of Vic, and Jane (Amurri), who eventually is drawn into the werewolf love triangle involving Jarrett, Vic, and Nora later on, and who holds a secret of her own...are all pretty much a bore. And these horror films set in small towns can get really tedious, boring, and repetitive after awhile. Especially considering in this film, the movie doesn't stray much from filming almost each and every scene inside the local bar. I didn't know werewolves drank so much.

Sheesh. The blood and gore levels are also extremely low in this picture, which shouldn't be the case for a werewolf movie. Werewolves by nature are violent animals, and for a film involving what the writers want us to believe are werewolves, you need a substantial level of blood and gore to be present. This movie delivers little to none, but it sure has a whole lot of bad dialogue. I probably would've liked "Animals" more if Naveen Andrews and Marc Blucas had switched roles.

But unfortunately, that wasn't the case. And Blucas, even when he has a pretty decent final battle scene at the end of the film with Vic, still can just never keep me focused on a film. Not to say he's a tragically bad actor, just not a really charismatic or intriguing one. Thus in a starring role, with him in any movie really, I'm immediately bored and unimpressed. But "Animals" problems goes way beyons Blucas, and can be attributed to adapting a book that wasn't very exciting to begin with, and not going the full distance with the so-called werewolves. If you like werewolf movies of a certain quality, might wanna avoid this one.

Positives:Aycox and Andrews give good performances. As does Amurri.

Negatives:Blucas as Jarrett is not very likeable or fun to watch on screen, the werewolves are only "half-done", the overall story is not very entertaining or interesting. And hardly any blood and gore.

Overall:One star out of four.





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