Containing some of the most incredible scenes ever filmed with actors and real animals closely interacting, "Roar" has become a cult classic.The movie was the passion project of Noel Marshall, who wrote, directed, starred and also cast most of his family members in different roles. "Roar" became notorious for its troubled 11-year production, which resulted in 70 members of its cast and crew being injured by the many predatory animals used in the film. The strength of the film is the unique portrayal of a family becoming completely surrounded by masses of wild predators. The plot line, however, is not very interesting or impressive.

Roar, is a film that certainly has to be seen to be believed. The film has brought upon itself many a curious viewer and with it's theatrical re-release in 2015, the film was being billed and sold on the very fact that everything you see on the screen before you is real, and while no animals were hurt during the filming of it, many cast and crew members were and it ultimately proved to be a timely and in other words, a disastrous film shoot. The premise is simple enough about a man living in the wild amongst many lions, tigers and various forms of other wildlife. This man considers these animals to be his friends and will snuggle up to them, play with them and treat them as you would any domesticated pet, like say a dog or cat, except in this case, these were real live animals and basically if you pulled a wrong move, both your character and the actor portraying them could suffer serious injuries if not be killed. For the first little while as I was watching this man treating these wild animals like everyday pets, I thought to myself that he must be insane and no matter how much you love, or respect animals, there certainly has to be boundaries that need not be crossed and this guy did not just cross those lines, but they never seemed to occur to him in the first place. That is where some of the interest, or should I say intrigue comes from while watching the film, Roar. Because it is well documented that many of these cast members as well as the crew suffered serious injuries while filming this, it brings a certain element of danger as well as suspense as you watch not only the more peaceful interactions with the animals, but also when the animals start to turn and even though the film is PG rated and there is no copious amounts of violence or gore, you still truly have a sense of fear and dread with what these actors must have gone through during the course of what must have been a draining and terrifying shoot. The film has been dubbed by some in the film world as a cross between watching Swiss Family Robinson meets watching a snuff film, and while you certainly don't witness anyone actually being killed, and nobody actually died during the film as to the knowledge I have read of it, it still gives the film the feel of watching an underground film, or even something like the Mondo Cane films that were popular amongst certain groups in the 60's and 70's because everything you watch is real and it gives the film almost a documentary type cinema verite kind of look and style. As, I mentioned earlier, sometimes you actually fear for the lives of these characters and the safety of the actors portraying them for this very reason and I think most likely no matter how big of an animal lover you are, nobody would really want a whole den of lions living and roaming around free in their house. Agreed? The film was certainly a labour of love for star, writer and director Noel Marshall, who also got his real life family including wife Tippi Hedren and daughter Melanie Griffith, to also star in the film. You would think after an unpleasant film experience as Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, that Hedren might want to stay away from working with real animals, but that was not the case here. Roar, is sometimes unintentionally hilarious as some of the antics of the animals on screen prove to be cute at some moments and at other times quite amusing. The acting in the film is really nothing award worthy in any way and when there is real life danger on the set, sometimes you laugh in spite of yourself for the absolute foolishness for these people putting themselves in harm's way and it sometimes backfiring on them. All the same, all these qualities make Roar to be an absolutely fascinating film to watch and it also proves to be quite fun at times as well. Think of an 80's version of Jurassic Park, or even Jaws. The audience I was in the theatre with also laughed along with much of the film and I am certain nobody could have called it a boring, or uninteresting experience. As for the film it does show light upon people placing more importance on animals than human life itself which while you think about it, the whole thing becomes kind of ironic after watching the film, but it is still nonetheless interesting and worth seeking out for anyone curious about anything I mentioned above, or just for a definitely unique viewing experience as this film certainly was. I would definitely be interested in knowing what the film's screenplay was actually like because as stated earlier in the film, the real life actions of the animal costars really wrote and dictated the film, so rightly they got credit where the credit was due.

What did I just watch? Adventure, horror, thriller? Well, it's all true. First they thought to make an adventure, but the script wasn't really working, most of the lion scenes were pure improvisation, and after it turned out to be a horror-thriller, not because you are afraid for the characters but for the actors themselves. I have never seen a movie where actors were so afraid but had to act as if they aren't. But you have to give them credit for the courage.Considering that the movie was mostly improvised mess, editing was done OK, still pretty bad by normal standards. They probably did a tone of b-tape, and it worked, seems a bit clunky, lots of added voices and sounds, lots of cutting in the middle of action, but still a decent job with material they had. Script is almost non existent, story is as simple as it gets: family came to visit their father, who lives with ferocious animals. And there is a side story, I don't know why they put that in the movie, it makes no sense and leads to nowhere, I guess it was because they wanted to involve characters from the beginning that had an awesome fight with the lions which was probably not even supposed to happen, but they kept on rolling (bandages on them throughout the movie are probably real). The most amazing scene was when the main actor comes running towards 4-5 lions and starts fighting them, they filmed that scene first, probably because if he got killed they could just say screw it we are canceling the production. You can tell that because even in the scenes before the fight the main character has a bandage on his hand that he hurt when fighting the lions.Most of the movie is characters running scared from the lions and lions run around in the surroundings lions normally aren't in. It is portrayed as something normal to live with a bunch of animals, but it's hard for audience to believe that because in just one day that tigers and lions lived in the house, they wrecked the bloody house to shreds. 4/10 just because the actors survived. What is next? "Hissss" an adventure in a beautiful eden with cobras.

Jesus Christ! I've read a lot about this since it was resurrected a while back, but nothing quite prepares you for just how insane it is. It is as if Timothy Treadwell had decided to make a sitcom starring his beloved grizzly bears. The Treadwell here is Noel Marshall, Hollywood producer and husband of Tippi Hedron. The two were obsessed with lions, so they wrote this picture, where a family lives with like 50 different big cats, mostly lions but also several tigers, cheetahs, leopards, etc. There are also some elephants. The script is nearly nonexistent - I mean, how exactly are you going to get 50 giant cats to do what you want? So the idea is just to write a bare sketch of a plot and then throw your cast (which mostly consists of Marshall, Hedron and their children) to the lions like it's ancient Rome or something. Besides Noel Marshall, who probably should have been in a mental institution, the rest of the family members and other cast look terrified much of the time. At one point, one of the Marshall sons has to speak the line "I don't have to be in Chicago until next week!" A lion jumps up on him halfway through the line and you can hear his voice quiver. Of course, Melanie Griffith is one of the kids. Amazingly, no human died during the many years of production (some lions did, though, when the ranch was flooded). The film itself is far from great, but it's a must-see.