Human Animals

After being rather disappointed by the French cult flick Themroc (1973)—a satirical work that is essentially silent (aside from grunts, gibberish, and typical urban noise) about a proletarian building painter/labor who has a sort of atavistic awakening and decides to become an urban caveman of sorts that takes his sister as a sexual mate and engages in cannibalism—I decided it was time I rewatched a somewhat similarly themed, dialogue-less, yet all but totally unknown dystopian Spanish sub-cult flick entitled Animales racionales (1983) aka Human Animals aka Die letzte Stunde which would be the second of only two films directed by filmmaker/screenwriter Eligio Herrero. On top of being an all the more enthralling and aesthetically pleasing experience than Themroc, Human Animals is an all the more absurd work featuring, among others things, post-apocalyptic bestiality, ridiculously endless nudity and dirt-covered naughty bits, and an agreeable social message that does not reek of outmoded far-left cynicism. Shot on the breathtaking Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain, Humans Animals is a delightful dystopian quasi-sci-fi flick with a setting in organic paradise that follows the quirky and kinky adventures of two men, one woman, and a very horny Alsatian Wolf Dog who seem to be the sole survivors of a nuclear apocalypse of sorts. A satirically wanton low-camp yet marginally artful work with virtually nil pretensions and that wallows in unrelenting entertainment value, Human Animals portrays ‘survival of the fittest’ in semi-scatological slapstick and delightfully dialogue-less form what happens when humans are left without culture, technology, and morals and revert to a feral-like state where fighting, fucking, and food are the most important concerns and petty human inventions like civility, self-control (especially of the sexual sort), and language are dropped by the wayside for something much more pure, lively, and lecherous. Sort of like the Spanish equivalent to Flemish auteur Rob Van Eyck’s debauched dystopian sci-fi flick The Afterman (1985), albeit less nihilistic and culturally cynical, Human Animals is sort of like the Gilligan's Island of post-apocalyptic films, except where the stranded islanders do things like people would do in real-life like have sex and fight to the death for the sole woman. 

Human Animals begins with fire-tinted stock footage of various nuclear detonations, thus letting the viewer know that humanity has finally achieved its ultimate goal—wiping itself out and a good portion of the world with it. After the mushroom clouds fade away, the viewer is introduced to the three characters who are unconscious and laying on their backs in a desert in a rather random way, is if placed there by God himself to repopulate the earth after humanity obliterated itself via nuclear holocaust. The three nameless individuals include a blonde and beauteous Nordic woman (Carole Kirkham, who would go on to play “Eva” in a film called I Love Hitler (1984)), a handsome blond Nordic man (Geir Indvard), and a darkhaired and swarthy Mediterranean man (José Yepes, the only actor to star in more than just a handful of movies). Upon waking up, the blond Aryan man looks at a picture in his wallet of his assumed sister with the writing “To my dear brother” on it, but the image soon evaporates for whatever reason as if it is the final remnant of human technology, just as the characters in the Human Animals clothes and civility will disappear as the film progresses. Not long after killing a bunch of little killer crabs and eating their remains, the Mediterranean man starts tearing off the blonde woman’s dress and wastes no time in sexually defiling her. In fact, the Mediterranean man featured in Human Animals matches the character traits of his sub-race as described by National Socialist eugenicist/racial theory Hans F. K. Günther, who wrote in his work The Racial Elements of European History (1927) that, “The Mediterranean man is very strongly swayed by the sexual life, at least he is not so continent as the Nordic (who need not therefore feel the sexual urge any less,” as well as, “A disposition to cruelty and animal torture, a not unfrequent inclination to Sadism may perhaps stand in relation to the stronger sexuality.” When the post-apocalyptic threesome happens upon an abandoned lighthouse-like building, the Mediterranean man decides it is a good idea to destroy all the plates and other manmade items he finds in the seemingly ominous building.  From then on, the rest of Human Animals seems like it could have been depicting prehistory as the increasingly hostile homo sapiens get further in touch with their carnal and visceral sides.

 Meanwhile, a German shepherd (played by “Larry” the dog) joins the humans, albeit from a distance. After killing, gutting, cooking and eating some furry animals by a fire, including jackrabbits, Mediterranean man gives the blonde babe some of the good old in-and-out, which upsets the blond Aryan man, who is a much more stoic yet sensitive individual while his swarthy nemesis is a sort of trickster and cheat. Discovering the Aryan man upset all by his lonesome in the woods, the Aryan woman gives him a sensual blowjob, thus stirring a bizarre beachside love triangle. Eventually, the promiscuous trio builds a primitive house where they all sleep together and begin to wears archaic loincloths and tribesman-like bandanas, which holds back their newly grown Conan-esque hairdos. Of course, problems arise when the Alsatian Wolf Dog decides he wants a piece of Aryaness ass. Before they know it, the debauched dog has raped and conquered the woman and the two men are forced to abandon their home and stay outside weeping with each other like two feeble fags. After visualizing zany zoophilia in his mind of his beloved blonde and the rapist canine, the Aryan man decides enough is enough and decides to burn the house down where the woman and dog are sleeping with each other, thus forcing the canine out for a final fight to the death. Rivals turn into temporary friends when Aryan man and Mediterranean man adopt the strategy of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and team up in maliciously murdering man’s best friend. Of course, all alliances come to a bitter, bloody, and brutal end after Nordic and Mediterranean naturally decide to fight to the death for the grand prize of the golden haired beauty who, being the lone woman on a deserted island, is more than worth her weight in gold. In the end, Nordic displays a triumph of the will after he smashes Mediterranean man’s brains in with a rock and secures the blond beauty for himself, thus securing the natural order of things, which is certainly never depicted in contemporary slave-morality-driven Hollywood flicks.  Indeed, “Might is Right” is certainly the name of the game in Human Animals.

 A pop-Darwinian tale of sub-biblical proportions that, despite featuring dog-on-woman actions and caveman-like violence, ultimately features a good message, Human Animals is a timeless celluloid tale that is nothing short of uniquely unforgettable and not just because it features a chick copulating with a canine. If John Waters had a heterosexual European brother bred on Nietzsche who had never read a book or watched a movie created after the 1950s, it might resemble Human Animals, which is essentially a postmodern silent film with a totally traditional, albeit sometimes trash, sensibility. Borrowing from many of the conventions utilized in Italian survivalist caveman exploitation films like Alberto Cavallone’s Conqueror of the World (1983) aka I padroni del mondo and Ironmaster (1983) aka La guerra del ferro: Ironmaster directed by Umberto Lenzi about prehistoric blond Aryan savages that tried capitalize off of the success of Quest for Fire (1981) aka Guerre du feu directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, albeit set in a post-apocalyptic deserted island instead of prehistoric setting, Human Animals is a rare ‘exploitation’ work in that it brings crude charm and simple yet important morals to an eclectically merit-less B movie style. In fact, I found Human Animals so effective that it made me think that a nuclear apocalypse might not be so bad as it would possibly force what is left of humanity to sort itself out and adopt a more natural mode of living. Of course, with its lack of dialogue, vague arthouse essence, and somewhat working moral compass, Human Animals is not the sort of work that will appeal to the average jaded gorehound nor Jess Franco fanatic as its nonstop nudity and sexual debauchery is far too radically ridiculous to arouse the sort of one-track mind individual who mindlessly wallows in mere boobs and blood. Given “A totally disgusting three stars” out of four by no one less than pseudo-redneck film critic Joe Bob Briggs, Human Animals is indubitably one of the most patently peculiar post-apocalyptic flicks ever made, as if directed by an avant-garde auteur from some distant porno planet. 

-Ty E