Butler's Cinema Scene

Young Melanie Griffin and “playful” friend

“ROAR” My rating: C+ (Opens April 24 at the Alamo Drafthouse)

102 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

There’s a lot of blood in “Roar.” Much of it appears to be  real.

This oddity from 1981 — recently revived by the folks at the Alamo Drafthouse — isn’t a particularly good movie, but as a cinematic oddity with a bizarro backstory it’s unique.

“Roar” was made by Hitchcock star Tippi Hedren (“The Birds,” “Marnie”) and her husband, Noel Marshall. Both animal activists, they founded the Shambala Preserve for African cats in California. They star in the film (Marshall, who died a few years back, also writes and directs), along with their offspring (among them a young Melanie Griffith) and more than 100 untamed big cats: lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, cheetahs.

The threadbare plot centers on the African animal preserve maintained by Hank (Marshall).  Shortly after he’s called away to tend to some animal business elsewhere,  his estranged wife (Hedren) and kids arrive for a visit, unaware that they’re walking into an environment controlled by huge, hungry cats.

You could think of this as a zombie movie with voracious felines in the role of the undead. The rustic lodge in which Mom and the kids take shelter is besieged by the animals, which smash down doors and take out windows in an effort to get at the human smorgasbord inside.

The advertising for “Roar” assures us that no animals were injured during the filming, but that human casualties were extensive.

No kidding. Over the decade it took to make this movie, Hedren had a leg broken and her scalp raked by talons. Marshall was bitten and clawed repeatedly and at one point was hospitalized for gangrene.  Griffith, a young teen at the time, endured 100 stitches and reconstructive surgery (her mauling is part of the finished film).

Tippi Hedren in scream mode

The acting here is cursory — Marshall has a sort of goofy Steve Irwin thing going, while Hedren and the kids spend their time running and screaming.

The first half hour has Marshall’s Hank zipping around his preserve on an ATV, interacting with the animals — a process that includes wrestling the big beasts.  The cats aren’t treated as pets, exactly, but their contact with humans is too regular for them to be considered entirely wild.

The central portion of the film is violent, with the terrorized family desperately trying to survive the onslaught of tooth and claw.

Then, in the end, Hank shows up to demonstrate that they animals are only doing their thing. No big deal.

Talk about mixed messages!

What’s truly astounding is the way the camera wades right into the middle of all this feline fury. De Bont’s images (he would go on to direct “Twister” and “Speed”) are often astonishingly beautiful with little of the jerky documentary style you’d expect from a production centering on wild animals. It’s almost as if Marshall and company had the cats hitting their marks like trained actors.

How this movie got made is a real head scratcher. And as silly as much of it may be, “Roar” is not an experience you’ll soon forget.

| Robert W. Butler