good back-story, and good acting

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

If you read the reviews of this "movie" from the highly respected "critics" you may be shocked (to say the least) to see the word "beautiful" in nearly every one. It gets extremely high marks for demonstrating that "love is blind" and that "you can't help who you fall in love with".It does a great job of "humanizing" animal rapists (sorry) "extreme horse enthusiasts" in a way that you will not only relate to them, but probably even want to drink a beer with them. You may even want to take Mr. Ed or My Friend Flicka out for a spin afterwards. You know, with the "good 'ol boys"."Zoo" shows how society "bullies" them and how badly they are discriminated against for their love of raping animals. They are basically just "tortured souls" who are "misunderstood". Mister Hands really DID feel "love" for his horse (especially when he was really, REALLY drunk). I'm not kidding. Not at all...When "Mr. Hands" dies due to his colon being popped like a cheap water balloon by a 4 foot long horse wiener, many people are saddened at the great "loss" to the world. "Mr. Hands" was the kind of guy you could pound beers (and other stuff) with and he was "nice". Sure, he was a horse rapist but nobody is perfect... right? In other words, the film depicts him and his animal raping friends as completely normal, good people who just happen to rape animals as a hobby. Who are you to judge!? "Zoo", along with the rave reviews that it received, gave me the last, sold, concrete pieces of evidence that I needed to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, that most bleeding hearts have completely lost their minds. It is the best known example of how some people can take "tolerance" way, WAY to far. To the point where they use the term "tolerance" as an excuse for, I dunno, RAPING HORSES.This film also gave me a firm grasp on just how feeble minded most people are. If a group of animal rapists get together to make a propaganda piece about how "you shouldn't judge them", and RUBES ACTUALLY GO FOR IT, that means that you can MAKE A FILM THAT WILL JUSTIFY ANYTHING.So what was the REAL lesson being taught to us in this "movie"? The sad, disturbing, horrifying and completely haunting thing about this "movie" is that I can already see where this is all going... With movies like "Zoo" and "heroes" like Michael Jackson and Pete Townsend "humanized"... to god-like proportions, It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.I can already see it happening within my lifetime and it makes me want to vomit my guts out just thinking about it. Living in a world where your are forced to "tolerate" their "alternative lifestyle". A world where every T.V. show and movie has a blatant "public service message" inserted in the middle that urges you to "respect the feelings" of child and animal rapists and that their behavior is "perfectly normal".A few decades ago, a movie like "Zoo" would have been completely inconceivable. Just imagine what you and your kids will be witnessing in a few more decades? God, I hope that I don't live long enough to witness it...

Based on the case of a Boeing employee who died from a perforated colon while being anally penetrated by a horse in Enumclaw, a town in rural Washington state, "Zoo" (the term is short for zoophilia, the sexual love of animals) is a brave attempt to address a highly controversial and polarising issue in a dispassionate way that neither condemns nor sympathises with the people involved in bestiality. The film recreates the events leading up to the man's death and its aftermath in a way that's part documentary / part drama with re-enactments of scenes and emphasising a soft, dream-like mood with delicately muted, wafting music. Director Devor uses four narrators, talking to an unseen listener, to retell the events from the point of view of the people who knew the man, referred to in the film as "Mr Hands", and this approach thrusts (um) the viewer right into the twilight world of zoophiles: how they found each other through Internet contacts, how they organised their tryst and their reactions when the man was injured and when their secret activities became known to the outside world.The film has the air of a noir mystery: the majority of scenes are filmed in shadow, at night or in dark colours with blue being predominant. The story unfolds slowly and elliptically and anyone who is unaware in advance as to what the film is about may be puzzled at the indirect way "Zoo" tiptoes around the subject until near half-way when a news report drops its headline in deadpan style. The pace is very steady, perhaps too steady and slow, and the film often dwells on several still camera shots which look deliberately staged as if for static display purposes. Close-ups and landscapes often look very abstract with washes of blue across a background; an orchard looks like a misty fairyland beneath a light coating of rain. The mood is even and quite blank until a scene in which police investigators viewing a DVD recording appears; the police react with horror and shock watching the act of buggery and only then do viewers feel something creepy crawl up their spines.For all its delicacy, "Zoo" gives the impression of something much bigger than its subject matter struggling to make itself seen and heard: the zoophiles give the impression of wanting companionship, a sense of belonging, a need to share something special that gives meaning to their lives, and thinking they have found it. They seek a utopia in which everyone is equal and no-one is judged by how much money s/he earns or how educated s/he is. The places in rural Washington where many of them live look impoverished and some zoophiles may well be drifters or marginalised people barely managing to make a living and survive. (Difficult to tell as many scenes are recreations of actual events with actors playing the zoophiles.) If the film had directly addressed the need of the zoophiles for meaning, for companionship, it might have been able to gain more co-operation from the people involved; as it is, the level of co-operation it got is very restricted. The dead man's family refused to be interviewed for the film which is a pity as the wife and child might have presented him as more well-rounded than he appears in "Zoo".The film also suffers from subjectivity and could have done with a more objective view of its subject. Interviews with psychologists and psychiatrists on zoophilia and perhaps other conditions such as lycanthropy (identifying oneself as an animal rather than as a human) might have shed light on why some people are sexually attracted to animals and to some kinds of animals in particular. The goals of the project would still be met: the issue would not be sensationalised and viewers might come away with a greater understanding of zoophilia and other bizarre philias. Instead the film can only concentrate on the horse-trainer, Jenny Edwards, who took charge of the horses after the incident became public: she admits that after having followed the case in its detail and ordering one of the horses gelded, that she's "on the edge" of understanding the zoophiles' obsession. It appears also that the director and film-crew were as much in the dark as Edwards was while making the film; even after its completion, the film-makers still were scratching their heads trying to make sense of what they'd done. Not a good portent for a film.Yes, zoophilia is a difficult subject to talk about, let alone film, without making it look disgusting, degraded or ridiculous and pathetic. "Zoo" tries hard not to take one side or the other but with a subject like this, the attempt to be "balanced" is a tough act indeed to pull off. Some viewers will be irate that the film advocates no position at all, as if it's the film-makers' duty to tell them what they must believe. I think though that to achieve the "balance" that "Zoo" strives for, the film-makers should have pulled back from their subjects and taken a more generalised view of the issue of zoophilia; the police officers, the courts, psychologists and medical who dealt with the dead man and his friends should have been consulted for their opinions about zoophilia.

It's a story as old as the hills: A man breaks into a farm, masturbates a horse to arousal and inserts the horse's penis into his anus. Sufficiently pleasured by the animal, the man returns the horse to its stable and drives back home. Days later, the man dies due to internal bleeding, the horse's penis having ruptured vital internal organs. We later learn that the man could have saved his life by checking into a hospital, but of course he was too embarrassed to have done so. He died, alone in his home, having been humped to death by a horse.Despite its sensationalist subject matter, this is a rather boring documentary. Not wanting to seem exploitative, the film-makers back away from their own material, too timid to ask any truly interesting questions.Why, for example, did horses fascinate the man? What is the appeal of bestiality? Is there such a thing as horse penis envy? Why was the horse not jailed for manslaughter? Is it possible for an animal to consent to having sex with a human? Why did the police charge the man with "coercing an animal into sex"? How exactly do you coerce such a huge and powerful animal into sex? Either the horse wants to do it, or it doesn't. Doesn't anyone notice the irony of a horse mounting a human being? But no, this documentary doesn't delve into anything interesting. There is one great shot, however, of a horse being elevated above an operating table and then later operated upon by a group of masked doctors. With its surreal juxtaposition between hospital gowns, antiseptic tiles, sterile medical equipment and a giant levitating horse, the sequence recalls several scenes in David Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers".6/10 - I watched this film thinking it was Frederick Wiseman's famous documentary, also called "Zoo", which examines the lives of the men and women working within an inner city zoo. But nope, it's about a guy who has sex with a horse. Kinky.Worth one viewing.

Normally the mere mention of bestiality has me immediately heading in the opposite direction. It creeps me out to just think about it. That said, director Robinson Devor's moody photography and use of music makes his documentary, Zoo, stimulating visually and aesthetically despite the provocative subject matter. It's about an air traffic controller whose pals are a small group associating at a farmer's large farm, sharing a dark secret to themselves..each member of this small group of men have affectionate sex with horses! You know, in this day and age, the way people worship and adore their pets, perhaps zoophilia(..a scientific term for people who REALLY love their animals)isn't as shocking as, say, 50 years ago. Devor uses actors in the roles of those certain individuals involved in the case of a man who died of internal bleeding after repeated sex with horses damaged him physically. When news broke out about this, a media storm changed the lives of those who committed these "concensual" acts with horses forever. Through audio interviews, the filmmakers actually allow us to be the judge, giving all those involved an opportunity to express their true feelings. In other words, Devor approaches the subject from all sides, while shooting scenes of the place using actors, richly capturing developed scenarios as they probably happened during the time leading up to the unfortunate demise of a rather melancholy man who found solace with a horse. While I may've been repulsed at the idea that men participated in such acts with horses, I was in awe with how Devor presents the story to us, taking us through what might've happened. Devor goes as far as creating a character for the man who died, his name, "Mr. Hands." Mr. Hands is treated rather enigmatic, with those who knew him even coloring him ambiguously.