ROAR - a flawed but one-of-a-kind film
Well, this movie is pretty insane. I still can't believe this was made, using untrained lions, tigers, leopards, elephants. It certainly wouldn't be done today. Not much of a story at all to this one, it was just basically throw a family together on a property in Africa populated by dozens of big cats, shoot it and see what we get. This film was notorious for its unsurprisingly dangerous 11-year production, where Tippi Hedren, daughter Melanie Griffith, D.P. Jan de Bont and other crew all were injured on set, some of their maulings even making it into the film, complete with real blood.
There are a lot of physical/slapstick comedy moments in the second half of the film, whether they were intended that way or not I can't be sure. Watching Tippi Hedren being picked up by an elephant's trunk and tossed around like a rag doll is not something I thought I'd ever see. Or Melanie Griffith inside a barrel also being thrashed about by the trunk of an elephant (another funny elephant moment is when one intervenes in the family's attempted escape in a small boat, and the beast proceeds to pick up the boat and smash it to bits using its trunk and also kicking it. Note to self: elephants apparently hate boats). Some pretty funny one-liners from the sons, too. "What kind of jerk takes a motorcycle off a roof?" And upon entering the house to see that poor Melanie Griffith has obviously been overpowered and smothered on the kitchen floor by several big cats: "What are you doing on the floor?" It's something of a mess as a film but it's pretty damn entertaining. I'd rate it 6/10.
Fighting the frizzies, at 11.