Uriah43 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.

MBunge 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.

acidtwix I have to say that I enjoyed this film. I relished the stunning cinematography and dynamic acting skills of both the male and female leads, as well as the many, many, many, sex scenes (none of which contributed to the plot. Hey, who doesn't love gratuitous tits every now and then?) Though I feel the ratio of tits to man-ass was greatly skewed in the wrong direction.In addition I really love how the director utilized the soundtrack to alert the audience of an impending sexual encounter. The throbbing beat really hammers home just how passionate the characters on screen really are. I also love that the viewing audience is made aware of the difference between the female villain and heroin by the differing elevator music. Nasty sex with bad girl=bow chicka bow wow. Good girl sex=bow chicka bow wow+ adult contemporary acoustic guitar. Well done.I especially enjoyed the fantastic cutting edge special effects. Blue hyena werewolf hybrids? Check. Mighty morphing mouths with sharp teeth? Check. Glowing gold and blue eyes? Check.I know what you're thinking, this movie sounds amazing. It has everything. And you're right, it does.

matowakita I finally got to see the final cut of this film and although I still think it's a good horror film, with a few fairly intense sex scenes, it's a bit less effective than I expected. It is much better than the IMDb rating indicates. Only the cartoonish digital "animals"(imagine Scooby Doo's angry ghost) weaken what could have been a well-above-average film. I find it interesting that Reno is listed first in order on locations. Nearly all of this was shot in Utah. But I know there was some controversy about the close to "soft porn" sex and the Utah Film Commission. Just filling in the long pause at the end of the first sex scene with talk I heard on set, I suspect that long cut leaves out a lot to be desired.I worked four days on this film as Bart Johnson's banker buddy, mostly in the bar scene. I loved watching the director working. Animals had a strong cast and crew and the editing and "most" of the effects are fine.It's certainly worth the price of rental from Redbox!