Zoo isn't a true documentary. It has elements of a documentary to be sure, and a documentary style, but because many of the men involved in the bizarre case depicted in the film, refused to be interviewed, director Robinson Devor opted to pepper his movie with a number of re-creations. This style sort of reminded me of The Laramie Project from a few years ago, only without big name stars. In the end it is this faux-documentary technique that really dampens the overall effectiveness of the film. By sticking to a mostly documentary format with actors playing 80% of the parts, Zoo often became high-centered? And I was reminded of the old adage about locking the barn door after the horses have already been stolen. In retrospect it's probably true that Devor would have been better off just filming a straight narrative using mostly unrecognizable actors in the same fashion that Flight 93 did. Though any further comparisons to that film will come to a shocking conclusion right now.

Zoo is a film that focuses on a group of men who carry on a sexual relationship with a horse. Whatever you do, don't be fooled by the title of the film, it's not the sequel to Madagascar. Things get off to a puzzling start when a man is rushed to a Pacific Northwest emergency room after experiencing internal bleeding. After working tirelessly to save this man, the doctors eventually lost the patient. Cause of death; a perforated colon.

Shortly thereafter, an investigation was launched, and authorities were lead to a ranch, where it was discovered that a group of men were essentially having a love affair with a horse. On paper, it sounds like Zoo might be some sort of a half baked, gross out Tom Green vehicle, but this movie is anything but funny (come to think of it, Tom Green's films aren't that funny either, but that's a different topic all together).

As authorities swarmed the ranch, the land owner was quick to dispose of evidence (numerous discs with hours of disturbing video), but some of these discs were recovered and reviewed by local law enforcement, and some of the footage is actually shown in the film. Granted, I'm not sure if this footage was recreated or actually evidence from the case. I was hoping someone might ask that question during the Q & A following the movie. No one did. I can say this. The footage certainly looked real and it was quite disturbing. Watching a man being penetrated by horse isn't exactly my idea of entertainment, but I was intrigued by the notion that I might get some insight into what sort of psychological factors might lead a man down such a twisted trail.

There's a lot going on in Zoo. It's an expose on Zoophilia. It's about animal rights. It's about our perception of what's right and what's wrong. And, of course, it's a most unconventional love story. Unfortunately though, the film is all over the map and it never satisfactorily focuses on any of these elements long enough to offer any sort of explanation or insight into any of these specific issues.

I give the film makers props for not actually taking a stance one way or another. This isn't really a movie about judgment. As I stated before, Zoo isn't really exploitive either. If anything, it humanizes these men and that may be hard for many audience members to stomach.

Furthermore, the cinematography is simply gorgeous (it was shot with a Sony HD camera), capturing the sheer beauty of the breathtaking Washington country side, and I loved Paul Moore's Philip Glass inspired score.

What left me cold was the writing and direction. The fusion of re-creation and documentary didn't work for me at all. I realize it would have been damn near impossible for the film makers to get actual interviews with the real men involved in this strange case (actually, there is one interview to be found in the film), but maybe this would have been more intriguing as a biography (in book form), or, as I stated before, a narrative.

As for the points raised by the movie, there are some interesting ones. What these men were doing is undoubtedly considered sick and immoral by society, but the strange thing about the whole ordeal, is that it wasn't against the law because bestiality was legal in the state of Washington at the time (and in fact, bestiality is legal in eight states). Actually, the ranch owner was initially arrested for homicide. He was being held accountable for the death of the man he dropped off at the emergency room. I believe he was later absolved of these charges.

When this case broke, it stirred up quite a bit of controversy. It was argued that animals are child-like in their thought-process meaning that these sexual acts couldn't be consensual. However, one newscaster (whose piece is ran in the movie) suggests the act was consensual. How could it not be. If it weren't consensual, it wouldn't have happened. Having said that, this particular newscaster wasn't suggesting that what these men were doing was moral. He didn't approve of it.

I had a few problems with Zoo. I was really bothered that ceertain things are revealed in the film and then completely ditched. Take for instance a key scene in which a police officer finds a disc in the fields of the ranch. The disc has the words-"Big Dick" written on it. If that isn't a testament to one's character then I don't know what is. Throughout the picture these men are portrayed as simple human beings with a bizarre disorder. They weren't harming this horse in any way. The horse was perfectly healthy. But to suggest that these men didn't think they were doing anything wrong, is complete nonsense. Firstly, if they felt they were innocent, why did they try to hide what was going on. I suppose they didn't want to be frowned upon by society. Okay, I'll give them that one. What I don't understand (in addition to the obvious) is why they were video taping this stuff. Were they selling footage on the internet? I just feel like there's much more to this story than the film makers were willing to explore. Stuff that might have put these so called "simple human beings" in a new light.

There are also scenes in the picture that I found to be completely irrelevant. For instance, there's an interview with an actor who plays a police officer in the film. He gives a little monologue about his opinion of the case. Quite frankly, I was completely uninterested in what he had to say. It didn't really have anything to do with what was going on. During the Q & A following the movie, an attendee addressed this particular scene, and the film makers stated that they felt this actor's thoughts lent a kind of emotional weight to the proceedings. I didn't feel that at all. If anything, it was distracting. It felt completely unnecessary, and as far from genuine as you could get.

In the end, I found Zoo to be well shot, but as a movie, it isn't nearly as strange, compelling, or controversial as the real case that inspired it. No doubt, many will be most curious about this movie because of it's disturbing sexual content (and that's how THINKfilm is selling it). After all, this isn't like that gross out sequence in Clerks II. This is the real deal and while I'm sure this stuff has probably been going on for years in various parts of the world, I've never seen it front and center in a film like this before.