Down on his luck working class zhlub Jarrett (a likable portrayal by Mark Blucas) meets and falls for lovely and enticing, but dangerous and mysterious young minx Nora (a nicely sassy performance by the alluring Nicki Aycox). Nora draws Jarrett into a dark and frightening netherworld where the predatory and animalistic side of human nature gets unleashed. Complications ensue when Nora's feral and possessive lover Vic (robustly played with lip-licking nasty relish by Naveen Andrews) arrives in town looking for her. Director Douglas Aarniokoski, working from an engrossing script by Craif Spector, relates the compelling story at a snappy pace, brings a dazzling hyper-kinetic style to the entertainingly low-rent material, firmly grounds the fantastic premise in a plausibly gritty and downbeat blue collar environment, delivers a handy helping of graphic gore, and provides a substantial amount of tasty female nudity and sizzling soft-core sex that gives the picture an extra scorching erotic charge. The sound acting from the capable cast helps a lot, with especially praiseworthy work by Blucas, Aycox, and Andrews in the leads, with sturdy support from Eva Amurri as sweet and smitten barmaid Jane, Andy Comeau as amiable bar owner Jules, and Bart Johnson as Jarrett's jerky boss Vaughn. The polished cinematography by Mark Williams gives the movie an impressive glossy look. Alan Brewer's throbbing tribal score does the pulse-pounding trick. Only the shoddy CGI monster f/x leave something to be desired. Good rubbishy fun.

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.

What's up with my favorite magazine. I have them all, from number one up to issue October 2010, talking about fangoria. They used to be the trend setter into horror but sadly they are more into reviewing Hollywood crap and other shite. But still I keep my subscription due to years of searching to have the whole collection. This flick had a two page review and was said to be the next porn flick you wished you had never seen. For one thing they were right. I indeed hoped that I never waisted 9O minutes of my life on it. What the hell was this. There is of course the nudity but what has it to do with the storyline, nothing. And if it's gratuitous than it bothers me. They said porn, well, you never ever, and I've seen the full uncut, see a kitty cat or his bouncing balls giving it to her. So porn, no way. Is there blood. Yes but maybe for only for 5 minutes. To make it all worser, when they become the so called animals it's all CGI. Just watch the last 10 minutes if you want to see the blood. Just take the cheap CGI with it. Sadly it isn't even SBIG (so bad it's good). Why o why fango are you letting me down already for a few times?

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.