I watched this movie yesterday and was affected emotionally for several hours after seeing it. If you are expecting a plot and a traditional kind of story line, you're going to be disappointed. I suggest you sit back and allow yourself to enter into an emotional space. Try and FEEL the characters and get into their heads. If you can do that you may have an exceptional experience of something that is difficult to describe with words.Logan is a troubled boy. He is being raised in a single-parent family by his mother. He is bullied because his peers think he is gay. But this isn't really a "gay movie" in my opinion. It's more about the feeling of being "on your own" in a hostile world. The boy is experiencing homosexual attraction to an older boy, something which often happens at the age of 13. He's seeking love in a lonely world. Release your expectations of what a movie "should be" and simply experience it. Try and appreciate the feeling being created by the experience. It's special.

Keep in mind, this film had a budget of about $50,000. That is peanuts relative to movie making. Consider how many names are in the end credits, then film processing, assuming it wasn't shot in digital, then distribution cost. I'm sure there are 50 people listed in the end credits, that's about $1,000 apiece, except given permits, insurance, cameras, sound equipment, lighting, and countless other details, it is probably more like $250 apiece. How do you hire people to make a movie for only $250, if even that? Plus, yes, the movie was 'stylized'. It was intended to be haunting and mysterious. I thought some of the Subplots could have held together better, and I though the editing could have been smoother, and more clear relative to the story, but for the minuscule budget they had, they did a pretty good job.The movie was made in 2006 and we are still talking about it. I watched in last night on Netflix, it did what it was intended to do within its tiny budget. That is, I could see the Directors underlying intent, even if he didn't have the budget to do the best possible job. Many of these low budget films are really film exercises for young directors, writers, actors, etc.... They all need a starting point. They all need to do some low budget 'concept' films to prove their worth for larger films.Because I love Independent Film, I can excuse some imperfections and take the budget into consideration when I judge a film. I judge this film to be pretty good within the proper context. The above is a copy of a post I made in the "Wild Tigers I Have Known" IMDb discussion, but I think it serves as a worthy review. This movie is worth watching to see actors and directors trying to make a movie out of a starvation budget, and I think they did a pretty good job given what they had to work with. I say it is worth seeing.EDITED: I watched Wild Tigers again today (May 12, 2013). This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I have watched it, and it still holds together as a look into the haunting mind-scape of a 13 year old boy coming to grips with who he is. Malcolm Stumpf (Logan) is truly haunting in this role, and given how little he had to work with, I think he did an outstanding job. This is a highly stylized movie with journeys into the dreams and fantasies of this boy. But I think it is a movie anyone who tries can relate to. I repeat, if you love indy film, then you will like this movie.EDITED:I watch Wild Tigers again (2015) and it still stands up. In fact, I'm thinking of watching it again (still 2015). But admittedly anyone looking for standard Hollywood Blockbuster fair is not going to get this movie. That's OK, not everyone is required to like every movie. In another review someone (Sammy) quoted Roger Ebert, and I think that quote best characterizes this film - "You instinctively understand that a film is not about WHAT it is about, but HOW it is about it." This is not a linear PLOT movie. Character A doesn't go to Place B and say thing C. This is a journey through the internal Dreamscapes and Emotions of an isolated and alienated 13 year old boy. It is an abstract film. I think my total viewing has now reach about 5 or 6 times, and I have the urge to watch it again. You have to take this movie for what it is, not for what you want it to be. But ... if you simply don't get it ... that's OK, not everybody has to get everything.

Cam Archer's "Wild Tigers I have known" is a story about Logan, an unpopular, awkward and insecure kid that gets bullied every now and then. He takes it all in and he lives in a world of his own, in some sort of ill-induced stupor state. Until one day he meets an older boy named Rodeo. He is rebellious, rough-edged and scruffy. Of course Logan falls in love with him. They're both marginal figures at moments but for different motives. Rodeo decides to ditch his girlfriend to spend more time with his younger friend, while Logan has no choice but to be rejected by everybody except Rodeo.Despite the initial happiness rush, Logan starts fantasizing about death. Neglected by his mother, the only true conversation she has with her is about ghosts and reincarnation. He wants to know if she would hug him if he were a ghost.There are instances in which Logan doesn't seem to be aware of his body. The only way in which he can inscribe himself into the world is by marking his chest and stomach. Writing, thus, creates the object. Writing creates or recreates him. But it's only symptomatic to witness Logan's fascination with women's clothes, lipsticks and long, blonde wigs. He's constantly dressing up as a girl or pretending to be a girl in order to obtain the love of a boy. It would be interesting, then, to contrast Hélène Cixous views on women writing that breaks the linear logic of male counterparts. Certainly, the entire film seems to defy this linear logic either from a cinematographic or a narrative perspective. In writing his own body with a red lipstick Logan makes us think of Ann Rosalind Jones "Writing the Body: Toward an Understanding of l'Ecriture feminine" because, ultimately, there is an unresolved sexual charge in Cam Archer's characters.From the very beginning of the story Logan is interested in mountain lions. These felines are beautifully designed animals, almost as gorgeous as the tangle-lined tiger. Logan's high school is constantly threatened by these animals that the principal considers very dangerous. Students are told to run as soon as they see a mountain lion. Logan, nonetheless, feels compelled to approach them. He goes into the woods with Rodeo trying to find them to no avail. Only unaccompanied will he be able to fulfill this wish. The mountain lion is beauty, it's beauty in an Apollonian way as Nietzsche would understand it. It's the beauty of light, of appearance, that covers the horror within. Fear of death can only be overcome by Apollonian beauty. But it's also through this beauty that Logan summons death. He will put his life at risk partly obeying Freud's Thanatos urge, and partly because the only way to face live is to uncover the horror of existence. Because facing life is also accepting one's own mortality. And by reaching out to this wild animal Logan is only unveiling what lies beneath.

"Wild Tigers I have Known." It will only be showing in big cities, to be sure. It is one of those films SO artsy, that it makes no sense what so ever, except to the director! I HATE those! And all of those oh-so-alternative/artsy people try DESPERATELY to find "metaphors" in what is EVIDENT horseshit.There was NO plot, no story, no moral, no chronology, and nothing amusing or even touching. To me, it was a bunch of scenes thrown together that had nothing to do with one another, and were all for "show" to show how "artsy" and "visual" they could get. It was an ATTEMPT at yet ANOTHER teen angst film, but missed the mark on every level humanly possible. Then the credits roll! I was waiting for it to make SENSE! I was waiting for "the good part." I own about 60 independent films in my DVD collection, many of which could arguably be called "art house" films. This will NOT be amongst them. You will be very angry at yourself for paying to see this film, much less ever buying it on DVD.