Editorials
19 Things We Learned from the ‘Day of the Animals’ Commentary
Earth Day used to be a pretty big deal. You may not even realize that we celebrated it earlier this month, but it was unavoidable back in its early days. The first Earth Day arrived in 1970 with a strong focus on people working together to curb pollution, litter, and all kinds of ills that humankind levels towards the planet. It was a good thing.
Even better? That renewed focus on the environment and our role in its care helped give new, thrilling life to the eco-horror/animal attack subgenres. I’m a massive fan of both, and while I think the films of the 1970s and 1980s are some of the best the subgenres have to offer, I also recognize that it wasn’t always a good time for the onscreen animals themselves. The end of those abuses was a good, necessary step, even if the subsequent attempts at manufacturing animal-related thrills via CG only rarely succeed.
In honor of the most recent Earth Day, though, we’re looking back to the heyday of the animal attack/eco-horror subgenres with a film that mashes them together pretty succinctly to deliver a truly thrilling slice of eco-horror.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Day of the Animals (1977)
Commentator: Lee Gambin (critic, columnist, author)
1. The opening crawl about the Earth’s weakening ozone layer sees Gambin identify an immediate distinction between this eco-horror/animal attack film and director William Girdler’s previous effort, Grizzly. While the earlier movie is clearly a simple Jaws riff – a great one, at that – Day of the Animals is attempting to give itself a more serious grounding.
2. He compares the film’s setup/structure as much to the disaster films of the 1970s as to eco horror films, due mostly to the introduction of an ensemble cast – made up of several recognizable faces like Christopher George, Leslie Nielsen, Richard Jaeckel, Andrew Stevens, and more – who are forced into a survival situation.
3. Paul Jenson (Nielsen) works in advertising and mentions a TV commercial “with the Indian with the tear in his eye,” and he’s referring to a very real ad. For those of you too young to remember/have seen the ad, it was part of the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign and featured a Native American man with a single tear falling from his eye while he stands amid landscapes ruined by litter, pollution, or deforestation. It was powerful stuff at the time… even if the actor, Iron Eyes Cody, was actually Italian.
4. A quick aside to that last point, Michael Ansara plays a Native American character here named Daniel Santee… and Ansara was Syrian.
5. Hollywood “legend” Lou Schumacher is credited here as both animal furnisher and trainer, and it was the horror genre that kept him busy in the ’70s with work on movies like Eaten Alive, Dracula’s Dog, and more. Gambin quotes another animal trainer who reported that Schumacher’s dogs weren’t always well-trained and were instead, on occasion, quite dangerous.
6. One trick that trainers/filmmakers use to make a dog look ferocious involves an appliance that fits a piece of beef jerky under the upper lip. It gives the impression of a snarl, and the only downside is that directors have to get their shot quickly before the dog figures out how to free the jerky and gobble it up.
7. Ranger Tucker is played by Walter Barnes, an actor who previously played football for the Philadelphia Eagles. It’s unclear if it’s a coincidence or an intentional nod, but Barnes’ first appearance at 4:07 coincides with shots of a golden eagle looking down upon the humans below.
8. Gambin recorded his commentary during the height of the pandemic in 2020, and he finds similarities between real life and the film’s display of ignorant people not believing scientists and newscasters telling people to stay indoors.
9. George and Lynda Day George were a real-life couple and epitomized certain ideals in the Hollywood of the 1970s. He was “such a stoic, strong, man’s man,” and she was “this gorgeous, leggy, beautiful blond.” They were more than just their looks, though, as both do great work here (and in their other horror collaborations, Pieces and Mortuary). The couple also became vocal activists working with campaigns against animal abuse, aerosols, and more.
10. The film’s wolves were provided by George Toth, whose family owned an animal sanctuary in California that frequently assisted with film productions. Gambin says that Joe Dante and Rob Bottin visited the sanctuary’s wolf enclosure when they were considering having the werewolves in The Howling transform into actual wolves. “And they were freaked out,” he says, “these wolves were not easy to manage, wolves are not an animal that’s easily trained.” They instead went the practical special effects route, and we’re all better off for it, as Bottin’s werewolf transformation remains the best to ever grace the screen. (It’s true, and while An American Werewolf in London is the better movie overall, Rick Baker’s transformation effects land in second place.)
11. Mandy Young is played by Susan Backlinie, and her character is the first to die here as she’s attacked by both a wolf and some vultures. Her cinematic claim to fame, though, is as Chrissie – the first character to be killed by the shark in Jaws. She also worked as an animal activist, a trainer with various birds of prey, and served as Day George’s double in this film.
12. Gambin describes animal attack sequences, particularly in films from the 1970s, as a “magpie’s nest of varied elements in filmmaking. The scenes find life due to the animal performers themselves, the cinematographers working to capture the right movement and angles, effects teams creating puppets and animatronics, and “the most important aspect… would be the editing.”
13. He points out that while the overwhelming majority of animal attack/eco-horror films feature a single type of animal at their heart, this one has numerous species attacking people. “Frogs, Day of the Animals, Wild Beasts, and even the made-for-TV movie The Beasts Are on the Streets, and some others, host an army of varied animals causing havoc for people who need to understand and respect their existence.”
14. William W. Norton co-wrote the film alongside his wife, Eleanor E. Norton, and he’s the scribe behind several genre gems, including Night of the Juggler, Gator, and Big Bad Mama. He was also an ardent supporter of Roman Catholics he saw as being under attack in the UK, to the point that he bought firearms in the U.S. to send to the Irish Republican Army back in Ireland. The couple was arrested in 1986 in possession of a van modified to conceal dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds.
15. The film’s release in 1977 coincided with several big achievements in the world of animal rights, including the founding of the Animal Liberation Front. The direct actions of ALF (no, not that one) involving activists breaking into laboratories to free test animals have been used as inciting incidents in horror films as diverse as 28 Days Later and Meat Kills.
16. The bear that Jenson fights is a cinnamon bear standing in for a grizzly, much as a Kodiak bear played the furry killer in Grizzly. It’s a subspecies of the black bear.
17. The little mute girl is played by Michelle Stacy, and while they don’t share a scene here, she co-stars with Nielsen in Airplane! The boy, John, is played by Bobby Porter, who would go on to become a prolific stunt performer in films like Pumpkinhead, Critters, Link, and more.
18. Gambin breaks down the eco-horror subgenre into 6 different categories: character–driven natural horror (Cujo), character studies drawing thematic parallels with human existence (Of Unknown Origin), alienated humans (Willard), revenge-fueled (Orca), the relentless and unfeeling leviathan (Grizzly), and the environmentally concerned (Tarantula). This is obviously a very quick breakdown, but if you’re at all interested in eco-horror movies, Gambin’s book Massacred by Mother Nature: Exploring the Natural Horror Film is a must-read.
19. Other animal attack/eco-horror movies mentioned by Gambin include Grizzly, The Swarm, Long Weekend, The Pack, White Dog, Nightwing, Prophecy, Alligator, They Only Kill Their Masters, Kingdom of the Spiders, Orca, Jaws, Frogs, Wild Beasts, The Beasts Are on the Streets, Bug, Willard, Night of the Lepus, Trapped, Dogs, Chosen Survivors, Mako: Jaws of Death, Ants, The Ghost and the Darkness, In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro, Deadly Eyes, Empire of the Ants, Tarantulas, Tintorera: Killer Shark, Tentacles, The Uncanny, The White Buffalo, Cujo, Of Unknown Origin, Monkey Shines, Phase IV, Black Zoo, Piranha, Rattlers, and Benji Takes a Dive at Marineland. He gives a special shoutout to one of my personal favorites, 1981’s Savage Harvest, calling it “a magical film” in desperate need of a restoration and Blu-ray release, and I couldn’t agree more.
Quotes Without Context
“Girdler should absolutely be championed as a filmmaker.”
“This is a magnificently staged and executed and horrific death.”
“To see animals kill humans is always a good thing in my book.”
“Animal rights, now.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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