A motley crew of whining city-slickers on vacation traverses the wilderness at altitude under the watchful eye of guide George and his faithful American Indian companion Ansara, until the animals that inhabit the region turn rabid. Despite its ominous prediction, "Day of the Animals" remains a fairly low-key action thriller, tame by both the genre and Girdler's standards.
Director Girdler continues to promote a perverted conservation agenda by using animals to inflict the natural world's revenge on mankind's neglect, highlighting the message he more vaguely introduced in "Grizzly". Much of the same personnel were employed for this outing, although his earlier success with the predecessor allowed him to boost his acting stocks, resulting in a veritable smörgåsbord of character actors and B-grade leads (Ansara, Neilsen, Mantee, Roman and Barnes in addition to the return of leading men George and Jaeckel). As the character's succumb to the harmful rays caused by damage to the ozone layer, they engage in strange and in some instances, downright absurd behaviour – Cedar's hallucinations and violent mood swings while Nielsen goes nuts-ville first murdering one of his stricken companions, then sexually assaulting the victim's wife, and in a corny contest, going mono-a-mono with a towering Grizzly bear (which for me was the film's crowning highlight).
There's a lot of time devoted to the carbon emissions debate and the impact of mankind's toxic lifestyle on the earth's fragile atmosphere, well ahead of the populist campaign. Had Girdler lived longer, perhaps this message would have become more prevalent in mainstream films, such was the momentum and success he was building up to his untimely death. Photography is a highlight and while the film employs the tired disaster movie formula, the real stars are still the hawks, cougars, bears, dogs, rats and the rest of the menagerie that turn on the 70's star-studded cast in some well-staged attacks.
Director Girdler continues to promote a perverted conservation agenda by using animals to inflict the natural world's revenge on mankind's neglect, highlighting the message he more vaguely introduced in "Grizzly". Much of the same personnel were employed for this outing, although his earlier success with the predecessor allowed him to boost his acting stocks, resulting in a veritable smörgåsbord of character actors and B-grade leads (Ansara, Neilsen, Mantee, Roman and Barnes in addition to the return of leading men George and Jaeckel). As the character's succumb to the harmful rays caused by damage to the ozone layer, they engage in strange and in some instances, downright absurd behaviour – Cedar's hallucinations and violent mood swings while Nielsen goes nuts-ville first murdering one of his stricken companions, then sexually assaulting the victim's wife, and in a corny contest, going mono-a-mono with a towering Grizzly bear (which for me was the film's crowning highlight).
There's a lot of time devoted to the carbon emissions debate and the impact of mankind's toxic lifestyle on the earth's fragile atmosphere, well ahead of the populist campaign. Had Girdler lived longer, perhaps this message would have become more prevalent in mainstream films, such was the momentum and success he was building up to his untimely death. Photography is a highlight and while the film employs the tired disaster movie formula, the real stars are still the hawks, cougars, bears, dogs, rats and the rest of the menagerie that turn on the 70's star-studded cast in some well-staged attacks.