Directed By Ricardo Curtis and Rodrigo Perez-Castro

Starring – David Harbour, Gabbi Kosmidis, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee

The Plot – A wolf (Kosmidis) and mountain lion (Harbour) team up when a meteor unleashes a virus turning zoo animals into zombies. They join forces with other survivors to rescue the zoo and stop the deranged mutant leader from spreading the virus.

Rated PG for action/peril and scary images throughout.

Night Of The Zoopocalypse Teaser Trailer

POSITIVES

When I found out that Clive Barker’s original short story “Zoombies” served as the basis for this movie, I eagerly anticipated checking it out, and while it commits some of the sins of today’s inferior kids movies, I can say that this was a surprisingly good time for a horror hound like me, who appreciates edgier kids movies that lean heavily into elements of horror. For starters, the atmosphere here feels plucked straight out of a zombie movie or creature feature, with resonating overhead hanging fog and a neon nightscape of a color scheme to the animation that really allows it to pop in the nighttime setting that makes up roughly 90% of this movie. The animation isn’t the most detailed or realistic that you’ve ever seen, but it maximizes the potential of these beastly creatures tenfold, with highly expressive and even unsettling designs while under the zombie influence that may prove even a bit slightly risqué for childlike audiences. It’s also not often that you get to praise and appreciate cinematography in animated form, but the camera’s expressive movements during swift dead pans and zombie arrivals prove that the dynamic duo that is Curtis and Perez-Castro have done their homework with regards to the kind of monster movies that we all grew up idolizing, with impeccably authentic framing and editing from those films that radiates a respectful homage on this kind of canvas. Also just as vital to the film’s thickly materializing layer of atmospheric dread are these scratchy synth and ominous organ instrumental compositions that lend themselves effortlessly to sequences of overwhelming circumstances, with a tightly maintained direction to seriousness under dire conflicts that allows these themes to permeate something other-worldly in their captures. When I say that these are some of my favorite compositions to kids movies in the still very early 2025 cinematic year, I mean it wholeheartedly, as not only do they feel like they could lend themselves to any George Romero or Universal monsters movie, but also that they feel so distinctly unique to the personality of any kids movie that I have seen in recent memory, producing such a beautifully blended marriage between sight and sound that really enhances the urgency of these attack sequences that refuse to play things as compromisingly cutesy as we would expect for a PG rated movie typically associated with watered down horror. Helping to evade this designation is the screenplay that doesn’t feel stretched for material within its 86-minute run time, nor uncomfortable towards conveying the magnitude of devastation that continuously plagues these animals, instead doubling down on the terror and peril that pits each of them in some pretty dire circumstances that certainly isn’t afraid to sacrifice a single one of them along the way. Without spoiling anything, I can say that I appreciated that not every character got out of this one unscathed, as quite a few of the central protagonists fell under the spell of zombie mind control, thus producing an unpredictable enveloping that served as one of the strongest benefits to my faithful investment never withering, in turn helping to carry the burden of responsibility during some of the more inferior aspects to the material, which I will gladly entail in the negatives section. On top of everything else, the performances were surprisingly charming and filled with exaggerated energies to their respective deliveries, from one of the most randomly assembled ensembles, in ways that allowed some of these familiar voices to disappear into the confines of their characters. For my money, the best of these was definitely Harbour as a gruff mountain lion named Dan, Pierre Simpson as Xavier, a movie-obsessed lemur who continuously broke the fourth wall while chewing the scenery, and of course “The Kids in the Hall’s” Scott Thompson, who serves as a sarcastic ostrich named Ash. While Harbour gets by on the cool and confident calm of his reserved demeanor, Simpson and Thompson are the complete and total opposites, instead opting for wildly eccentric personalities and vocal obscurity that continuously made me forget that they were performing their respective characters, all the while enacting the zany quirkiness to their animated captures that work seamlessly towards attaining believability in the response to the visual designs from the characters that always test them to dig a little deeper in their diaphragms. Lastly, while the film really never has a chance to overstay its welcome with the runtime, I found the pacing to be surprisingly smooth and full of progression in the arc of the narrative, especially considering it wastes little to no time developing the primary conflict, which could’ve left ample room of opportunity for the plot to remain stalled in place throughout its second half. Instead, the conflict receives several deviations to its development that keeps things interesting in the resolution of its mayhem, and though these beneficial breaks for our protagonists rarely make sense with the rules that are initially inscribed to the script’s foundation, it never loses the fun factor or steam towards its pacing that makes this as easy of an animated engagement as you can ask for.

NEGATIVES

If the film has one obvious weakness to its script, it’s definitely in the abundance and quality of its characters, who outside of Kosmidis’ wolf, never feels like they get enough backstory or development to capture the investment of their audience. Considering that Harbour’s Dan easily walked away as my favorite character, with nothing in the way of deviating depth to his outlining, it speaks volumes to the surrounding pieces that we’re unfortunately left with, where blandness and annoyance starts to come into play with characters like Poot, a baby pygmy hippopotamus, whose cute and cuddly observations under a childlike vocal range made the character the intolerable link towards obviously selling toys for the movie, whenever he was doing quite literally nothing to add to power and connection of the group’s integrity. For my money, Poot and probably 80% of the other characters should only be there to serve a proverbial body count, as though the actors who adorn them do a serviceable job towards bringing them to life, they’re never the kind of impactful characters who moved the needle on my investment towards the film or their conflict, leaving it slightly less meaningful to the stakes of the film, which should be maximized, but are instead driven down by a lack of relatability to anyone outside of Gracie and Dan’s dynamic. Beyond weak characters, my only other noticeable issue with the film pertained to its comedic muscle, which never feels as distinguished or palpable as the elements of horror that dominated the proceedings and presentation of the movie. While there certainly are opportunities continuously exchanged with some sight gags and dialogue deliveries, the lack of effort to both their creativity and commitment left slightly more to be desired, and as a result I only laughed a couple of times throughout the proceedings, and even those were nothing that even came close to being long-winded or gut-busting impacts to someone who revels in the kind of darkly depraved humor that made up a majority of this movie’s material.

OVERALL
“Night of the Zoopacalypse” is a refreshingly dark and devastating deviation to contemporary kids movies that will find its biggest audience around the Halloween season, serving as the initial introduction to another generation of horror hounds. With a magnitude of faithful homages in everything from the imagery to the atmosphere, Ricardo Curtis and Rodrigo Perez-Castro tap into the vulnerabilities of childlike audiences everywhere, while vividly bringing to life Clive Barker’s original ideas, and though the characters and comedy fall prey to the overpowering imbalance of horror, the energetically passionate performances of this ensemble take a big bite out of conventionalized expectations, making this one night that bares repeating.

My Grade: 7.5 or B