Review of Day of the Animals

I'm pretty sure that if director William Grindler hadn't died prematurely, as a result of a tragic helicopter crash in 1978, he would have grown out to become Jess Franco's equivalent in America, with literally dozens of horror & cult films on his repertoire. In only six years time, Grindler had already directed eight films; of which some of them are quite derivative of each other. This "Day of the Animals", for example, is almost an exact copy of Grindler's earlier (and arguably most successful) creature feature "Grizzly", only there's a much wider selection of animal opponents – duh – and slightly more detailed character drawings. The lack of surprise makes "Day of the Animals" a rather mediocre late 70's flick, but it still comes warmly recommended to all fans of 'nature ferociously revolting against humanity'-films for several reasons. For example, Grindler maintains an effectively tense atmosphere throughout the whole film (even during the rather slow and occasionally dull first half hour), some of the animals' attacks are definitely exciting and there's a wide and interesting variety of characters trying to escape the wrath of the animal kingdom gone mad. Twelve of the most appalling people go on a guided hiking/survival trek in the Californian mountains and quickly notice there's a unusually strange and mildly unsettling ambiance in the air. Rightly so, because the overly polluted ozone balance upsets and completely disorientates all the animals and causes them to spontaneously attack the human trespassers in their area. Under the animals' siege, the group quickly falls apart and their petrified and obnoxious attitudes turns them into easy targets for the wild birds, wolves, dogs, cougars, snakes, etc etc... As mentioned above, the first half hour of the film is slow and slightly dull, mainly because there are too many characters that require a basic introduction. Their backgrounds are rather relevant for the rest of the film, so it's important you know there's the wise Indian, the troubled married couple, the ill football-player, the insufferable advertising executive, the gorgeous female journalist and so on. Still, even during these initial script-formalities, Grindler creates an ominous atmosphere using simple tricks like moody music and extended images of viciously staring animals. As soon as the group starts arguing constantly and falls apart, the story becomes slightly too implausible and particularly Leslie Nielsen's over-the-top portrayal of the ill-tempered business man is hard to take serious. The sequences in which Mandy ("Jaws" star Susan Backlinie) falls victim to a virulent bird-attack and Frank (Jon Cedar) desperately tries to avoid a wild confrontation with rabid dogs – observed by an already traumatized young girl – are downright brilliant pieces of pure suspense that reminded me of the best moments of critically acclaimed creature-features, like "The Birds", "Jaws" and "Them!". The ending, however, is severely disappointing, as I *** Spoiler *** was anticipating a typically disturbing and merciless fate for mankind, like it was the case in "Kingdom of the Spiders". Too bad.