Day of the Animals 1977

On the topic of killer animal movies, here's one from the good ol' 1970s about a group of hikers getting lost in the midst of some environmental propaganda. The animals are on the fritz, and they blame the depletion of the ozone layer. I'm not sure if there's any science behind any of it, but whatever. What's the worst that could happen on a friendly nature hike?

When someone goes into the woods in a horror film, you should have a pretty good idea of how things can go wrong. Our group of hikers is led by Christopher George, and includes some native American guide, an annoying mother and her eager son, some random filler characters, and most importantly... Leslie fucking Nielson.

He wasn't always a funny guy. He used to be... HILARIOUS! What a fucking asshole! Well, he starts off as a chipper albeit disrespectful patron, making racist remarks at the native guide and calling the tour guide "hot shot" all the time, as if he thinks he can be a better host than the perfectly reasonable Christopher George. As soon as things start to go south, his condescension gets overt. And when things go even more south, he starts insulting everybody and calling the nice little kid a cockroach. He really goes off the deep end and gets a god complex. If the plot were described as simply as "Leslie Nielson fights a bear", I'd be sold. I probably should have opened with that, but like the movie itself, you need a bit of buildup to something so extravagant.

It's not very gory, but there's definitely a bodycount. It's a fun adventure and I'm definitely willing to watch more from this killer animal subgenre.

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