Cryptozoo: A Trippy, Hippie Tribute to Fantastic Creatures
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B+
A tribute to hippie utopianism, the animated feature Cryptozoo, set in 1967, evokes the era of definitely adult ‘toons like Fritz the Cat or Yellow Submarine.
Animation director Jane Samborski’s richly eclectic miscellany of visual styles depict a bestiary of mythic creatures and outré scenes of sex and violence that are matched to director/writer Dash Shaw’s allegorical narrative. At its core is a competition by an eco-saviour heroine and a military bounty hunter for a creature of Japanese folklore called a baku that can devour dreams or nightmares.
In an overture scene, hippie couple Amber (Louisa Krause) and Matthew (Michael Cera) sneak into an inky forest outside of San Francisco, strip off their clothes, have sex, and talk revolution. After smoking up, he notices a high security fence and thinks, as one does in such circumstances, that it would be cool to climb it.
“I can see your balls!” Amber yells at him, which, unfortunately, are the last words he hears from her, though she returns to the movie many scenes later. Unbeknownst to him, he has entered the “Cryptozoo,” a sanctuary for endangered “cryptids” or supposed mythical creatures, including unicorns, gryphons, chimeras, dragons, winged horses, man-beasts, and bird-women.
We then begin with the main story. Lauren Grey (Lake Bell) — a veterinarian who rescues cryptids from the black market — is a broad-shoulder heroine with the brooding gaze of a Dante Gabriel Rossetti model. Lauren, who grew up in Okinawa on a military base, had a life-changing encounter with a baku, which saved her from terrifying nightmares.
Lauren works for a rich benefactor, Joan (Grace Zabriskie), who lives in a tower on the site of the cryptid sanctuary she is building, which she plans to finance from tourist visitors. When Lauren hears there’s a baku on the loose, she’s determined to recover it before it falls in the hands of a bounty hunter Nicholas (Thomas Jay Ryan) who, you can bet Jurassic Park, wants to weaponize the creature to swallow the dreams of the anti-war activists.
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
Lauren is assigned an assistant, a shy Eastern European woman named Phoebe who, when she removes her babushka, reveals she’s snake-haired gorgon whose gaze can turn tormentors to stone. (“People fear what they don’t understand,” she laments.). The two women set out, debating the pros and cons of caging creatures to save them, as they travel the world, including a visit to Orlando, Florida, where the mini-world Epcot Centre is being built.
Their quest takes them to a faun, Gustavo (Peter Stormare) interrupted in mid-orgy, to a tarot reader (Zoe Kazan) and a visit to run-down Kentucky strip clubs, all accompanied by John Carroll Kirby’s spacey, psychedelic electronic score.
They finally find the baku (a sort of orange piglet with an elephant’s trunk) to transport it home, but when Lauren and Phoebe arrive back to the Cryptozoo, all hell — and the cryptids — have broken loose. There’s a final showdown involving an assortment of creatures, most of the human characters and even Amber, the naked hippie from the open scene.
Though neither the action-adventure stunts nor the B-movie messaging feel particularly fresh, the film itself makes a case for the care and nurturing of difference. The inventiveness and range of the artistic styles here, from the firefly delicate to the monstrous, make Cryptozoo stand out as a rare cinematic beast.
Cryptozoo. Directed and written by Dash Shaw. With Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Louisa Krause, Peter Stormare, Thomas Jay Ryan, Angeliki Papoulia, Zoe Kazan, and Grace Zabriskie. Available August 20 to rent or buy on the Apple TV app/iTunes and VOD platforms.