With a poll coming up on IMDbs Classic Film board for the best titles of 1984,I decided to take a look at a DVD sellers page,where I spotted a listing for what sounded like a bonkers Italian Horror movie,which led to me getting ready to go on a safari with the wild beats.The plot:Giving the animals their final food & water for the night,the zoo keepers lock the creatures up for the night.Unknown to the zoo keepers,the local water supply has been infected with PCP.As they look at the CCTV cameras,the keepers are horrified to see the animals start to act as if they have lost their minds. Attempting to calm the situation down,the animals end up breaking out of their cages,and running down the streets of Rome.As the keepers try to catch them all,the wild beasts cause havoc on the streets.View on the film:Inspired by an article co-writer/(along with Antonio Accolla) director Franco Prosperi read about a large supply of cocaine being hidden in the sewers of Italy,the screenplay by Prosperi & Accolla leaves anything like subtlety & depth behind,with the writers instead going for an all-out deranged smash and grab.Whilst the film does run out of steam during the "dialogue" scenes,the writers make sure that the insane gory set pieces come thick and fast,as the animal attacks go from a pack of rats ripping a young couple up, (how did Lucio Fulci not direct this?!) to a polar bear running down a school corridor,and a legendary cheetah chasing a car scene. Originally planning to film in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe),Prosperi had to change plans for Italy and South Africa,when terrorist groups starting shooting his hotel.Despite the filming troubles,Prosperi and cinematographer Guglielmo Mancori give the movie a vast scope,with the tower block giving the animals the perfect concrete jungle setting.Made on the cheap,Prosperi goes straight for the sleaze jugular,as the blood drenched animal attacks are matched by exposed female flesh and psychopathic children.Whilst some of the animal attacks do look hilariously poor,Prosperi shows a bit too much glee in the animal on animal attacks,with a scene of a fur ball being covered in rats being a really uncomfortable, grisly scene,as the beasts go wild.

Brainless, senseless and – most of all – pointless Italian exploitation fodder that somewhat enjoys an infamous reputation because director Franco Prosperi supposedly sacrificed the lives of innocent & defenseless animals in order to make his film appear more realistic. I, for one, can't judge if this is wholly true, but you never know with these crazy Italian horror directors, right? Ruggero Deodato's crew also killed real animals during the production of "Cannibal Holocaust", but at least that film grew out to become a genre milestone, whereas "Wild Beasts" is obscure, hard to find and honestly not worth tracking down. The most fun you'll have whilst enduring this film is guessing which city the events take place in. The intro sequence only reveals it concerns a North European city, but if you have some language and/or geography knowledge, you can quickly figure out in what city the animals of the local zoo go on a gory murder spree. For reasons I still haven't figured out, the water supply at the zoo becomes poisoned and all the animals – big or small, friendly or dangerous – turn into aggressive and uncontrollable killers. It doesn't take to long before they escape the zoo limits and transform the whole of Hamburg (oops…) into their hunting territory. "Wild Beasts" is quite a bad film, with no tension or coherence. It basically is just animals killing people and vice versa, but there's no building up tension or atmosphere at all. There are some hilariously awkward scenes to enjoy, but I'm not entirely sure they were meant to be comical, like when the cheetah attacks a woman driving a beetle with the same colors as the animal itself. There's a lot of gore and sheer nastiness on screen, but whenever something really important happens, the photography is dark and unclear. Overall, a lame film and not really worth seeing. "Cannibal Ferox" and "House on the Edge of the Park" starlet Lorraine de Selle adds absolutely no value to the production, neither.

Franco Prosperi's "The Wild Beasts" is a fairly routine Italian horror flick about nature gone nuts.The real animals were used in this movie and in many cases killed just for the sake of this Italian shocker.The animal attack scenes are very gory,but the photography by Franco Delli Colli is too murky.The use of animals in "The Wild Beasts" is quite stunning,unfortunately the acting is truly horrible.Still it's nice to see Lorraine De Selle of "Cannibal Ferox" and "House on the Edge of the Park" fame in the main role as a professor.There is also a really tense sequence where a cheetah chases a VW bug down the road and a scene where some rats are burned off a windshield in slow motion.So if you are a fan of Italian horror cinema give this one a look.7 out of 10.

Franco Prosperi must really get off on killing animals, between this and all the shockumentaries he's done. This one's got some great sequences (shot in Frankfurt-am-Main) but never lives up to its great premise. Filmed entirely at night, the direction is clumsy and only rarely suspenseful. It's never boring or predictable but not terribly exciting or original, either. Though if you've waited all your life to see a naked woman get eaten by rats, here's your chance.