Instant Favorite.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Murders in the Zoo (1933) a really good surprise, this seem like way before it's time, Really opening scene in the movie, we see someone being tired up and left in jungle or something and then we see his lips sowed up as well. As the movie was about just hour long, it was kind of fast movie, There were dome dark moments in the movie and i did find this movie to be very funny in some placesI liked how movie flowed, there some really great scenes for it's time and I liked how the movie ended, Really good acting from the cast 8 out of 10

I really like Lionel Atwill in this film. No, I'm not normally a guy who goes for the "villain," but as someone who could identify with a man who's been cheated on, I kind of sympathized with him. Of course, I wouldn't go to his lengths to get back at a woman, but it made for an interesting film! Atwill's "Eric Gorman" runs a zoo and has a young wife who has no interest in him, who cheats on whatever good-looking young guy is around. Gorman gets wind of her activities, confronts her and she tells him, "Yeah, so what? I hate your guts anyway (to paraphrase)." To Gorman's credit, he keeps his cool but inside he is steaming and he winds up with a few clever ideas on how to handle her boyfriend.What he does, and how, makes for an exciting second half of this film. The first part is a little slow, but stay with it because the second part is very, very suspenseful. It also has some excellent film-noir-type cinematography.The first half of this one-hour movie was more of a comedy than anything else, however, as Charles Ruggles plays a goofy guy who becomes the public relations man at the zoo. Mostly, he makes stupid comments and is annoying but later he does a couple of funny bits (like when he was trapped in a zoo cage with a huge snake). Still, this movie's genre is labeled "horror/crime/mystery" but you wouldn't know it until Ruggles mainly disappears and the Atwill starts to go after his wife and her boyfriend "Roger Hewitt" (John Lodge). Then, the whole atmosphere of this film changes and there is plenty of "atmosphere." It's good stuff.A new notes: Randolph Scott plays a scientist and it just doesn't look right. To me, Scott only looks natural in a western setting, and I think he'd agree with that since he went that route almost exclusively a few years after this movie in 1933......This film, and others like it, were released just a few weeks ago (late Oct., 2009) on DVDs, offered by the TCM Network as part of the "Universal Cult Horrors" Collection. They are kind of pricey but I bet they look great on disc.

One of a wave of macabre little "Frankenstein"-inspired horror programmers from the early '30s, this botch has some atmospheric zoo photography (the city is never specified) but is deficient in most other respects. About a mad zoologist who kills anyone who dares to get near his luscious and flirtatious wife, it stars Lionel Atwill, who looks like he's having fun, but whose character makes no sense. Check out one scene where he first professes his undying love for his spouse, then makes sadistic overtures to her, then laughs at her, then kills her. He murders many (and the opening sequence, dispensing with one of her suitors, is quite creepy), in such a way that we can't believe he would ever attain the zoological prestige the script conveys. Young Randolph Scott is another near-casualty, and as his girlfriend, Gail Patrick, so good in later nasty comedic roles, looks bored. Charles Ruggles, as the "comedy relief" publicist, has only two character aspects--he drinks, and he's afraid of animals--and his material falls terribly flat. There are a couple of good animal sequences, including a climax where the evil doctor springs lions and tigers from their cages (and it looks as though animals WERE harmed in the making of this movie), then, in the next sequence, they're safely back, and we're never shown how that happened. The plotting is jumpy, and at 62 minutes, one suspects a lot of continuity was cut.

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.