brilliant actors, brilliant editing

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

This movie has been made and remade over and over again. A group of young people in the woods (or jungle or island or exotic land or wherever) stalked and attacked by a mysterious woodland creature. These are all low budget movies so the effects are pathetic.The only high points (and this is curious because they can do better than this) are Keke Palmer, Elizabeth Gillies and Joey Lauren Adams. Keke we've known for a long time from Akeelah and the Bee and True Jackson VP. Elizabeth was in the Nick show Victorious. Both young likable young actress who you hope would have good careers. Joey is a veteran actress who has been showing her breathtakingly beautiful face in films for decades. I don't know why any of them agreed to do this movie. The money couldn't have been very good, and it certainly isn't a career boost. All three of them could easily get other projects.Anyway, this is just a pathetic remake of a remake of a remake. If you like Elizabeth or Keke, there are plenty of other projects they've done where you can see them. Skip this.

"Animal" is simplistic, nonsensical, juvenile, and extremely unoriginal. The acting is average, at best.Rating this movie a 10, you'd have to have low expectations as to what constitutes an outstanding movie with superb acting performances and an awesome story accompanying an even better script. There is nothing true about those sentiments in this movie, whatsoever! People go into woods. Monster in woods. Monster chases people. People find cabin. People hole up in the inexplicably impenetrable cabin , blockaded with flimsy pieces of wood, a 5 year old could break through, now people have to figure way out! But people are scared, ooooo. The monster was the only thing that was slightly cool and put together extremely well but the kills were lame and monotonous. Why this movie garnered an NR is beyond me. Some blood thrown around here and there, some superficial wounding, a little monster chomping, but nothing to rave about. Pretty bad,actually. After the opening sequence, we see a Jeep full of people driving on a desolate dirt road, who happen to come upon a blockade, across said road. They park and proceed to hike in the direction from whence they just drove. It makes no sense. Keke Taylor was very good in her role. The other characters stood around and stared a lot and blabbed stupid lines, some of which had no reason to even be in the script. There are no frights, no scares, and no tension. Overall, it was very boring and a complete waste of time.

Horror movie opening: The Lesbo from Chasing Amy, That Guy From Soap Operas, and a Blatino(whom I'd love to sit on my face) watch a female rapper get torn to shreds by what we can only assume is Predator without the laugh. And then, ever so unexpectedly: A Beefcake and Eyebrows Plucked to Hell head out to the woods with Chilli, Peter Pan, and Sassypants McGee where they have a run in with Predator's mentally challenged cousin, and barricade themselves into a middle class version of the cabin from The Evil Dead. Joining forces with The Lezzie,Soap Opera DILF, and the Blatino(who becomes Senor Douche-bag), the movie dives headfirst into Dwindling Party Trope as Preda-dur-dur-dur picks them off one by one.See: Reinforce The Barricades, Try to Outsmart the Beast, The Asshole Won't Let Us Back In, Someone's Pregnant, "There used to be more of us", etc.Those things aside, the movie does break away from some of the conventions and the Typical Horror Movie Idiot Conversation is often balanced with some witty humor from Sassypants, who unfortunately Outs a Dead Guy(RUDE!) in fear. If more horror films balanced the humor and drama as well as this film did, the genre probably wouldn't be as much of a piñata for critics. And although in the end, it only ends up being a few notches above average, it's worth watching for horror fans.

This is Animal (2014) Directed by Brett Simmons and Written by Thommy Hutson and Catherine Trillo. Spoilers most certainly ahead. No plot here; Group of assorted friends camp in woods, They are attacked by savage unseen thing. Holding up in a cottage in the woods, they get picked off. Have we not seen this before? The cast does what it can with a flat script, They are all monster fodder, The only question is which ones first, and then next on down the line. I found little to like in any of the characters. Bickering lovers, Gay lovers,selfish survivalist, and self sacrificing expiring hero. Their acting was on the emotive side.The editor did everything he could to try to make this ludicrous formulaic concoction scary. Without success. Holding back scenes of the "Animal" until the last reel, does not, in this case build suspense. It just alerts us to the letdown when we actually view the CGI shops version of what it is suppose to be.It looks like they farmed out the FX works to five different shops and got back five different versions of the beast. None of them convincing; I noticed no full body shots of the thing, how it moved was never shown either. It seems to jump from mammal to lizard to alien,I will admit straight out that I viewed a crappy upload, but the repetitive plot could not have been any better on the best of uploads. Once more I suspect that there was more to the movie then presented in the version I watched.In truth, I don't care that I left this attempt at a horror movie incomplete, There could be no surprise plot revelations that would make it any better. Two out of Ten Stars.