ANI-MOVIES, *Night Of The Zoopocalypse

He who was once claimed as "the future of horror" happened to make a story fit for a nice family film. Hellraiser creator Clive Barker had written a story called Zoombies (no connection to the unfunny franchise from The Asylum) and had planned for it to be a graphic novel, but instead screenwriters Steven Hobab and James Kee revamped it for an animated movie titled Night Of The Zoopocalypse which of course was borrowed from George Romero's groundbreaking undead movie. Rodrigo Perez-Castro and Ricardo Curtis both directed this film intended to act as a gateway horror for kids, and it did in fact pass with flying colors. The plot involves animals in a zoo succumbing to an alien virus which turns them into zombie-like creatures, but instead of rotting flesh and actually eating each other, the animals are more like they were put through a Willy Wonka machine and ended up as mindless mutants made of gummy candy. The film had a total of seven production companies behind it, but it all comes together with cartoonish character designs and the right kind of mood that makes for a great scary movie. There's wonderful homages to horror flicks while incorporating the level of fear that have made hit modern-day creepypastas whereas most movies actually based on creepypastas completely miss the mark, and there is a fantastic musical score that leaves anything Disney has done for the films they intended to be "spooky".

Set in a Canadian zoo, Gracie the timber wolf lives with her pack but doesn't take things too seriously. A small bit of space debris crashes into the zoo's farm and infects a rabbit that starts turning the other animals into mutated freaks who aren't specifically zombies as they can lose their body parts and reattach them, even if it's not their own, so you've got bizarre creatures combined like a giraffe-gorilla beast right out a G-rated Cronenberg concoction. Gracie is one of the few animals to not get infected along the zoo's newest recruit, a mountain lion named Dan, and the two of them work with an odd assortment of survivors. There is a way to cure the zombie critters, although it turns out to be something else other than just washing it out with soap and water, but Gracie and the others stop the plague after dealing with a kaiju-sized gestalt abomination comprised of all the animals that would even irk Lovecraft.

Night Of The Zoopocalypse was largely animated by the French production company Mac Guff who also worked on A Monster In Paris, although this one is an English-language film so there's quite a few American voice actors in it. Gabbi Kosmidis from Unicorn Academy is the voice of Gracie with an odd southern drawl, David Harbor is the strait-laced Dan, and Scott Thompson from Kids In The Hall plays a stuffy ostrich. This is a fine entry-level horror for little hellhounds without being too frightening, and the neon lighting used for it really gives it a creepy vibe. The character designs are also unique appearing like it was a blend of an old Garfield episode and a psychedelic cartoon from the 70s. It might become a regular in your children's rotating movie catalog, although it still holds up for a family feature and a decent pick for a kids Halloween party.