Roar

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Well I guess if you ever wanted to watch a movie where the cast and crew literally get eaten alive by the stars of the movie, well this is that movie. Its horrifying and terrible and likely contributed to the end of the world. I say that without exaggeration.

What Roar is goes beyond anything that Tommy Wiseau, Neil Breen, and M. Knight Shamalyan had ever envisioned for a vanity-piece-gone-awry. There is volumes of material that are all worth reading about for this film, so I'll briefly sum up what you should know. Basically, Tippi Hendren and her husband Noel Marshall hatched an idea to make a film about living in peace with animals that are dangerous but misunderstood. Its about harmony with nature. So what they did was bought a large compound in the California desert and then brought in 150 big cats (and 1 elephant) to live with their family and then shoot a film with the lions, tigers, panthers and jaguars as the stars. Mind you this is all done with Noel and Tippi acting as head trainers, veterinarians and Robert Muldoons of the compound - all without a bit of experience or education on how to do so. So they built a set, hired Jan De Bont as cinematographer and start filming himself and his family getting eaten by their pets. This is hubris to the maximum.

What resulted was a financial disaster despite taking almost a decade to film of nearly $15 million in losses, your daughter (Melanie Griffith) getting her face clawed off and needing plastic surgery, your cinematographer getting the back of his head torn off, your ranch flooding destroying your set and your cages thus freeing the lions resulting in 14 of them drowning or being shot by authorities. This not only inspired the scumbags that are "big cat rescue" buttholes but DIRECTLY resulted in Tiger King (Carol Baskin bought many of her big cats from Tippi Hedren). Unbelievable.

Now for the film itself.

• Is it fun? No.
• Is it funny? No.
• Is it riffable? No.

What Roar is instead is an absolute nightmare. The horror that takes place on screen is what Wes Craven, Blumhouse, and even Alfred Hitchcock (who likely had an indirect hand in causing this disaster) could only dream of. The torture that Noel Marshall put his children through (and were truly forced to do), his complete lack of human compassion as viewed by not yelling "Cut!" and kept rolling as his actors were eaten in front of him, especially when his step-daughter is mauled while his wife desperately tries to pull the lion off her is display of moral absence that has never been caught on film like this. Noel's own on screen performance which can only be described as daffy all with wall-to-wall circus music score is the thing of nightmares.

Should you watch it? Absolutely. This is required viewing. Will I ever watch it again? Hell no. Watch it once and then have your beliefs that maybe mankind's time is done reinforced.

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