FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Mike_Noga When rogue sunspot activity grants the chimps at the zoo hyper-intelligence, they quickly rebel against their human captors, forcing the humans to ride tricycles while wearing ill-fitting bell boy outfits and smoking cheap cigars while mocking the humans' pale, unswollen buttocks. In an attempt to befriend the chimps, the humans refer to them as mere "monkeys" which sends the chimps into a face eating frenzy that transforms the zoo a cotton candy coated abattoir!Okay, maybe not. This is actually a lean and mean tale of obsession and revenge. I don't want to spoil it for you by giving away any details except to say that this type of story, the pathologically jealous husband who views his wife as property, and the brave wife trying to escape him, has been told many times over.This version however, is stripped down and raw, and the zoo setting gives it a slightly bizarre twist, just enough to jar you yet not so much it detracts from the emotional impact of the story. The acting is good on all sides with Atwill especially frightening as a man both driven and intelligent enough to exact a horrible fate on anyone he even suspects of crossing him. The opening scene is actually pretty disturbing and but does it's job well in that it lets the viewer know exactly how far Atwill will go to impose his retribution.

Hitchcoc I do enjoy watching Lionel Atwill. Unfortunately, this movie is pretty much without redemption from the asinine murder plot to the humor to the acting to the big lunk, Randolph Scott. Ruggles takes any sort of credibility out of the thing with his silly drunk routine and constant sidetracking. The plot is about a jealous man who kills off anyone who gets the least bit close to his wife. He is big game "bring em back alive" sort of figure. It's one of those films that must have been made to fill a theatre with little kids on a Saturday in the forties. Atwill is really venomous (so to speak), but when he kills his wife (the object of his jealousy) that seems out of character. Zoos must have been quite the attraction in those days. It comes across as pretty exotic.

Neil Doyle This is a good pre-code example of a horror film that must have shocked audiences in the early '30s and still carries enough punch to find favor with today's horror addicts.LIONEL ATWILL is at his wickedest as a cold-blooded owner of a zoo full of wild animals, everything from snakes to panthers. The story starts overseas with him doing an unusual sewing job on one of his victims after catching him kissing his wife, then switches to their return on a ship where his wife is fearful that a young man who has taken a shine to her (JOHN LODGE) will be his next victim.Atwill catches them having an intimate chat and we know he's found a man he must eliminate in a cruel way. It goes on in this fashion with the criminal getting away with murder until a clever lab technician (RANDOLPH SCOTT) and his assistant (GAIL PATRICK) are able to turn the tables on him.TCM features a good print of this little thriller, way ahead of its time in some of its subject matter, a film that any fan of Lionel Atwill's kind of villainy will want to catch. And incidentally, Randolph Scott and Gail Patrick are excellent in good supporting roles.Only drawback is the "comic relief" given to CHARLES RUGGLES who gives his weak material a good try but becomes more of an annoyance than anything else in the role of the zoo's new publicity agent.

InsideTheCastleWall Animals that kill on command could make a great horror movie but I wasn't impressed with this film.Murders in the Zoo has a strong opening (can be found on YT) but the rest of the movie doesn't hold up.I've read several reviews that call this movie "grisly" "chilling" "creepy" but I don't see it. To me it has very little horror to it at all. It's a mystery crime movie first.**SPOILERS** one death scene has a woman fall into alligator infested waters and you see nothing except a piece of her clothing afterward. For another death scene a boa constrictor does what they do best. You would think a scene like that would be gripping but still nothing. Then there are some obviously tame and oppressed big cats released into a small area to act as a blockade while Atwill makes an escape. The cats run around scared and confused. You see a male lion attacking smaller cats like cougars and female lions. It's off putting.Then this terrified actor is squeezing the life out of a snake for a scene where he extracts venom to create an anti venom. I was surprised the snake still had it's head when he was done.Then there was a bumbling drunk running in and out of scenes for comedic relief which was really unnecessary and detracted from any macabre quality this movie may have had.The last half of the movie dragged. It gave the impression that three months were spent filming the first half and one week for the last half.