Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Zoo
THINKFilm


5.2

based on 20 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring John Paulsen, Ken Kreps, Richard Carmen, James Chu, Paul Eenhoorn, Forest Fousel, Conor Gormally, and Malayka Gormally

Zoo is an extraordinary glimpse into the life of a seemingly normal Seattle man whose secret sexual appetites led to his shocking death. (ThinkFilm)

GENRE(S):	Documentary \| Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Robinson Devor Charles Mudede
DIRECTED BY:	Robinson Devor
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 18, 2007 Theatrical: April 25, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	80 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Nominated, Grand Jury Prize (Documentary), 2007 Sundance Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

TV Guide Ken Fox

Bold and unforgettable meditation on a truly bizarre incident that pokes at the very heart of one of our culture's biggest taboos.

Variety Scott Foundas

A breathtakingly original nonfiction work by Seattle-based filmmaker Robinson Devor (whose "Police Beat" was among the highlights of Sundance's 2005 dramatic competition).

Village Voice Nathan Lee

The beautiful and beguiling new film by Robinson Devor meditates on the Enumclaw incident through a hypnotic blend of original reporting, staged reenactment, testimony of involved parties (both zoophiles and local law enforcement), and pervasive, somewhat precious lyricism.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The result is an immersive experience that never forgets the basic facts of the story but attempts with a level head and open mind to understand how in the world it might happen.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Whether meaning to or not, Devor and his accomplished crew expand our concept of the documentary film, which relegates this documentary to art houses, not porn theaters.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gianni Truzzi

The surprise of this locally produced, stylized documentary is that it could leave you wishing it had told a little bit more.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Devor's sympathy for both the men and the animals is humane, yet his movie is palpably sad. A sense of shame cuts through all the ambiguity. You know less about what you've watched when Zoo is over than you did when it started. And that's what makes the movie so hard to shake.

San Francisco Chronicle Neva Chonin

Compelling.

Slate Dana Stevens

It would have been easy to focus on the eroticism of horses, who, let's face it, are beautiful creatures to look at even for the nonzoophilically inclined, but Devor shows the animals only sparingly. For him, what's most interesting is what the horses represent to the men who (gulp) love them: the wildness and purity of nature itself.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Zoo is a cool sensibility married to a hot topic, a poetic film about a forbidden, unsettling subject. Elegantly made and eerily lyrical, it deals with what director Robinson Devor has accurately called "the last taboo, the boundary of something comprehensible."

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Quiet, sensitive, resolutely unsensational documentary about virtually the most sensational subject you can imagine.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

To what degree does Zoo test our limits of tolerance? In the end, not much, which is why Devor's strange, carefully composed objet d'art is a limited achievement.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Devor doesn't endorse horse-on-man sex, but he does attempt--with sympathy--to account for the appeal.

Newsweek David Ansen

Zoo avoids any taint of exploitation, but it errs on the opposite extreme. I came away from it wanting a little less Art and a lot more simple reportage.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Paradoxically, it is precisely because Mr. Devor refuses to acknowledge the murkiness that clings to every frame in his film, because he refuses to engage with the world beyond that of the zoophiles, that they seem like creatures from some never-ending night.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Constructing the narrative (made up mostly of dramatic reenactments, although given the static nature of many of the scenes, the word "dramatic" is pushing it) obliquely, Devor and co-writer Charles Mudede weave in the thread concerning the individual referred to as "Mr. Hands" into the film almost casually.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

You could wander into this poetic documentary willing to be sympathetic toward its subject -- men who have sex with horses -- and still find Zoo cryptic and borderline bogus.

Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)

Interviewees are too busy excusing themselves to offer much illumination into their desires, and Devor's moody style (silhouettes, reenactments, an ominously throbbing score) only heightens the sleazy Dateline NBC feel.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Time and again, Devor sabotages his own attempt to bring "zoos," literally and figuratively, into the light.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A bizarre quasi-documentary that more or less tries to rationalize bestiality as a harmless quirk.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mr Hands gave it a10:
Take a walk on the wild side. Don't you want to know how a father, and successful engineer for Boeing, could end up dying by receiving anal sex from a horse? I've heard of people having sex with animals before and I always assumed that they were under the influence of alcohol and or drugs, or they were insane. It's interesting to hear people, who are apparently able to blend in with society, try to rationalize how they can have a sexual relationship with an animal. Furthermore, the incident that this film focuses on involves a man (Mr. Hands, the engineer) who allowed himself to be mounted by a horse. It's not a case of some randy drunk who rapes a dog; thats a different situation. These "zoo" people seem to have a genuine love for their animals and insist that they do not force the animals to participate. Thats not hard to imagine, as many people have had a dog ride their leg. If you allow a dog to ride your leg, is that bestiality? Are you abusing the dog? FYI ,I don't know, I don't own a dog or a horse, and I love my cat, but I can't imagine a sexual attraction to any animal. If you follow some religion, the issue might be clear to you - it's just forbidden by your god. But for those of us who are willing to examine human behavior from a more objective standpoint, this film will raise interesting questions about the nature of love.

August G. gave it a5:
I lived in Enumclaw when this happened. Everyone was surprised, but no one was sympathetic. These people are sick and need help. IT became a joke for a while- hey, i went to Enumclaw to ride a horse the other day.

j gave it a0:
Disgusting! whoever made this movie should be killed.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page

Zoo THINKFilm

Zoo
THINKFilm