Yes, horror movies can be art. That doesn’t always mean that they should be though.
I’ll go ahead and let you know that this is a werewolf movie. The film doesn’t really play coy with that fact, so you figure it out pretty much right away. The werewolf in question is a young woman in Denmark who lives a drab existence in a small fishing town where everyone knows each other. Because of that familiarity, her secret is impossible to keep, especially since her mother shares the same affliction. Her father and doctor, and most of the rest of town, would like her to undergo the same medical treatment as her mom which has rendered her docile to the point of near catatonia. Marie, the movie’s heroine, has other ideas.
When Animals Dream is a beautifully made movie. The cinematography really brings you into the dreary, claustrophobic life that the characters lead, and the acting is very strong. Sonia Suhl is particularly good conveying Marie’s fierce independence as a woman coming into her own for the first time, which she accomplishes largely through physicality and facial expressions since she doesn’t have a ton of dialogue. When Animals Dream is also kind of boring. There are brief bursts of sudden violence, but hardly enough to sustain a horror film about lycanthropy. To be fair, the filmmakers are clearly not interested in making a particularly good horror film, using the werewolf trappings as a metaphor to tell the story of woman being constrained by the expectations of polite society, and more pointedly the men who dictate the boundaries of that society. Which is cool, horror is a tremendous vehicle for metaphor, but even that theme feels a bit thin. It’s certainly possible that I would feel different if I was more familiar with Danish culture from the prior decade, but absent that knowledge I didn’t find the central allegory very rich.
If this had been a 30-minute entry into an anthology film, I think I would have loved it. As it stands, though, there is not enough plot, not enough terror, and disappointingly, not enough meaning to chew on to justify the movie’s 84-minute run time. Bad Moon and Werewolves Within make infinitely more fun movie watching experiences, as does Ginger Snaps, which has the bonus of tackling similar subject matter with greater success.
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