DVD Review: Live Animals
Live Animals (2008)
Studio: Echo Bridge Home Ent.
Release Date: September 8, 2009
Directed By: Jeremy Benson.
Cast: John Still, Christian Walker, Jeanette Comans, Stacy Still & Patrick Cox.
Review By: Annie Riordan
A night of partying ends in horror for brother and sister Nick and Erin, when the lakeside cottage they crash at is invaded by a hefty hunter with a dart gun. Upon waking the next morning, the siblings – along with their friends – find themselves imprisoned in an abandoned horse stable, chained and locked in the filthy stalls like animals. Their captor is a ruthless human trafficker who plans to sell the kids off one by one to the highest bidders…but not before they are raped, beaten, tortured, humiliated and utterly broken. Nick is determined to rescue both himself and his sister, but a daring escape only leads them deeper into the sick and twisted world of white slavery.
Shot on a seemingly dismal budget and starring no one you’ve ever heard of, Live Animals is better than it has any right to be. Granted, the plot is a teensy bit shaky – I really doubt that a white slaver would use such a slipshod method of procuring new merchandise, and the twist ending doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But if you can ignore these few minor flaws, Live Animals is quite surprisingly impressive.
Much of this is due to the casting of John Still as our merciless slaver. The guy gives a solid and chillingly believable performance as the stone cold sociopath next door, portraying his wheeling and dealing Wayne as a boringly normal guy who can pick up a feed store order and cut out a guy’s tongue (in a scene rivaled only by 1970’s Mark Of The Devil) with the same bland expression of business-as-usual on his jolly Santa Claus face. His performance is outshined only by Stacy Still (who I believe is his RL wife) as the mentally unhinged and skeletal Kathy, a fellow captive whose rantings and ravings are hysterically, blackly comedic. She also turns in a creepy rendition of “Little Bunny Foo Foo” that will be stuck in your head for hours – if not days – afterward.
If Shuttle had been gorier, or if the Hostel movies had actually given a shit about character development, the two combined would probably look a lot like Live Animals which, despite a few instances of unbelievable idiocy, pays off with a gruesome blood -oaked climax involving a circular saw, and a nihilistic ending spoiled only slightly by a wtf? plot twist. The filmmakers did the best they could with what they had and, quite frankly, did a bang up job all around. This is a fine quality gore flick, genuinely upsetting, stomach turning and sick as all fuck. Bottom line: rent it. Now.
Brutal As Hell Rating: 3 out of 5
