At B-Movie Club this weekend, we watched "Rise of the Animals". No, not the David Attenborough special. The Chris Wojcik masterpiece where even vegetarian animals craved human flesh.Director: Chris Wojcik
Writer: Chris Wojcik
Film Studio: Whacked-Out Entertainment
Budget: $7000 (estimated)
Gross: Unknown
IMDB Rating: 3.7/10
Synopsis: In a world where animals have turned on humanity, a teen travels across the country in search of the girl of his dreams.
*** Spoilers ahead ***
Premise
Our hero Max, played by Greg Hoople, has one last pizza delivery to make before making it to a movie with his buddy (Adam Schonberg). Trouble is, it's in the bush at some cabin and they'll be slightly late to the movie. After some difficulty they reach the cabin and by then there's no way to make the movie, but the wary travelers are in luck as this cabin holds a plethora of drunken teen girls. Max's longtime crush is visiting from Canada and they hookup despite her having a boyfriend. Max, not knowing that tidbit, tries to be chivalrous and return her phone to her while dealing with killer animals.
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Max, before the SHTF.[/caption]Writing
There were a lot of things that didn't make sense in the story like why a girl would leave her phone in the back of a car with a voicemail on it for the guy she cheated with. From a writing perspective there were some overly convenient things that happened like suddenly stumbling on a canoe when they happened to need a boat, but the way it is executed makes it OK. There were a lot of good lines and funny things that happened that kept us laughing. Max learns good lessons and I like the way it ended.
Continuity
The film had trouble with continuity. The pizza boy was wearing a white shirt under his blue short-sleeved dress shirt until he opened his dress shirt and suddenly there was just hairy chest and a thin gold chain. Later, a girl at the cabin party lost her hand to a puppet deer. There was arterial spurt. A while later, a hand was cut off by a regular car window and there was no arterial spurt. Early on in the movie there was a lot of blood, but later there was almost no gore. All the animals are affected by some unknown thing causing them to attack humans, so it's odd that humans aren't affected when a dark-haired CGI gorilla shows up out of nowhere also super pissed off.
Effects
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Bad taxidermy puppets, early 2000s CGI, fake blood, manikins, and explosions come together in this harrowing tale that is unlikely to scare. The sound effects rarely match the creatures emitting them, but that's part of the fun of B-movies as any enthusiast knows.
Favourite Parts
My favourite part happens around 38:30 when Stephanie Motta was supposed to be peeing in the woods. Oh, and the romantic mushroom cloud moment is good too. I also felt nostalgia at the CGI creatures because they reminded me of my old Dark Age of Camelot player days during college.
Conclusion
It's a fun movie to heckle with friends. The gore is on the fake side and not stomach churning, so unless you're extra sensitive to the sight of fake blood, you should be able to get through this one. It could also lend itself well to B-Movie Bingo. It's also barely over an hour long, so it's a quickie if you're strapped for time and want a laugh or two. Actually, you'll probably have more than that.