Parky At the Pictures (17/10/2025)

(Reviews of Souleymane's Story; Madly; Good Boy; and Night of the Zoopocalypse)

SOULEYMANE'S STORY.

Following a series of documentary shorts inspired by his time in Vietnam, Boris

Lojkine made his feature debut with Hope (2014), a docurealist drama about a Cameroonian boy and a Nigerian girl crossing the Sahara en route to Europe. Five years later, he produced Camille (2019), a biopic about photojournalist Camille Lepage, who was killed in 2014 while covering the civil war in the Central African Republic. Now, Lojkine sets a scenario in France for the first time with Souleymane's Story.

Hailing from Guinea, Souleymane Sangare (Abou Sangare) has an appointment with the

Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) in order to secure his carte de séjour. In the two days prior to the interview, he had been hurtling around Paris making food deliveries on a bicycle belonging to Emmanuel (Emmanuel Yovanie), a documented friend with a shop job, who lends Souleymane his wheels for a 50% cut of his pay.

Few of Souleymane's customers acknowledge his existence, although plenty of fellow migrants are happy to chat when he has two seconds to himself. When the delivery company app requires him to post a selfie, he has to cycle to Emmanuel's shop so he can pose for proof of identity. They barter over payments, as Souleymane needs to pay Barry (Alpha Oumar Sow), a self-proclaimed expert in OFPRA strategies, who has devised a tale of eviction and political repression to make Souleymane's residency application more compelling.

Struggling to remember the facts about the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), Souleymane asks to change his story, but Barry reminds him that he has to be word and date perfect. Friend Oumar is too preoccupied with his own application to help Souleymane get to grips with his backstory and he is so focussed on memorising the `facts' that he runs into a car as dusk descends. The bike is damaged in the crash, while the customer (Léonie Lojkine) refuses the delivery because the bag is torn and Souleymane is aggrieved that she leaves negative feedback on the app because this could lead to suspension or dismissal.

He gets further stressed when the owner of a pizzeria (Boris Lojkine) is too busy with customers to fulfil takeaway orders and they get into a shouting match before he can finally deliver. His client is Roger, an old man whose son has placed the order for him and Souleymane has to call him to get the delivery code. Roger is ailing, but still takes the trouble to ask Souleymane's name and where he comes from. As a result, even though he's in a tearing hurry to make up time, the Guinean offers to slice the pizza because the old man seems so disorientated.

Stressed because he has spoken to his sick mother back home, Souleymane is dismayed when his last customer of the night turns out to be a police stakeout team and they quiz him about Emmanuel and the lack of lights on his bike. Needing to catch a bus to the night shelter, Souleymane just about makes it across Paris in time and allows himself a moment to switch off during the ride. At the centre, he has to persuade a stranger to let him have his usual bed and has his dinner interrupted by a call from his girlfriend, Kadiatou (Keita Diallo), who has received a marriage proposal from an engineer.

With Khalil (Younoussa Diallo) badgering him to find him a delivery route, Souleymane lingers in the shower before doing his laundry. The man at the next sink tells him that he was asked about prison conditions during his OFPRA interview and Souleymane scours the Internet on his phone for relevant information. His kindly bed neighbour tells him to stick to the truth and make eye contact with the OFPRA interviewer and everything will be fine.

The next day, however, things go from bad to worse, as Emmanuel's delivery account is closed down and Souleymane can't find him to get the back pay he needs to buy vital documents from Barry. He spends the day trying to find where Emmanuel lives and kills time waiting for him to come home. However, Emmanuel is furious that Souleymane has had his delivery account closed and refuses to hand over any money. They fight on the corridor and Souleymane cuts his hand and face in a fall down the stairs and can't hold back the tears, as he wonders why he ever came to France.

Rushing to Nation station to meet Barry, he hands over the only money he's got and is grateful that Barry not only lets him have the papers on tick, but also answers some questions about the UFDG and the prison in Conakry. Having ridden down the line with Barry, Souleymane is late for the bus and is left to spend the night on the street. After wandering for a while and cleaning up his cuts in a café washroom, he finds a staircase to hunker down and calls Kadiatou to tell her to accept her proposal. They chat on camera and he laments that Allah didn't see fit to align their stars. She cries, but he insists that she has a happy life.

Woken by his phone alarm, Souleymane queues for a coffee before meeting up with Khalil at the hostel. He showers and puts on a white shirt for his interview with an OFPRA agent (Nina Meurisse), who types rapidly into her computer while firing out questions. Souleymane stumbles over a couple of answers and she tells him that she has heard identical details several times in recent days. She suggests he tells his own story rather than spout a rehearsed spiel and he fights his despair, as he reveals that his mother was cast out of his father's house for being a devil woman because she had mental health issues. Determined to find her somewhere safe to live and pay for medicine, Souleymane went to Algeria, but couldn't find a job. When his friends left for Libya, he went with them, only to be arrested and tortured in prison and threatened that harm would come to his mother unless he paid protection money.

With her brow furrowed with sympathetic concern as Souleymane sobs that he just wants to pay his mother back for all that she had given him, the OFPRA agent takes down his testimony and informs him that he will be given a month to appeal if his application is rejected. Outside in the pale sunshine, Souleymane pulls on his beanie and zips up his coat and wonders how he is going to earn a living while waiting for his decision.

Leaving us with no clue as to whether Souleymane's story will be accepted, this gruelling and deeply humbling film keeps viewers on the hook to ponder their own past attitude to the Just Eat or Deliveroo riders who have shown up on their doorstep. As much an indictment of the gig economy as the exploitative trafficking trade, the film pulls no punches in its depiction of a society too self-absorbed in the frantic whirl of daily life to take time to explore the realities behind the things we have come to take for granted in the digital age.

Keeping Tristan Galand's camera close to Abou Sangare in every scene, Lojkine leaves the audience with no option but to witness the endless stream of harassments, frustrations, and petty prejudices that make up the cyclo-courier's routine. Xavier Sirven's kinetic editing reinforces the relentlessness of Souleymane's schedule, while also setting the propulsive pace that makes it exhausting just to watch events unfold.

The tussle with Emmanuel feels a bit Loachian, as does the trainboard lesson in Guinean politics and the overall theme that everyone has an angle and that everything has a price. But Lojkine manages to resist melodrama and pathos by maintaining a docu-like detachment even when shooting in close up. He's hugely indebted to Sangare, a non-professional who follows in the tyre tread of Lamberto Maggiorani in Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948), by combining despair, decency, and doughtiness in his bid to provide for his family and stand up for his rights as a human being in the margins. His Best Actor win in the Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes was wholly merited, as was Lojkine's Grand Jury Prize.

Very much a man's man, as he jokes with his fellow migrants (whose joshing Pan-African camaraderie is fascinating to behold), Souleymane also reveals a softer side in his phone calls to his mother and girlfriend and in his interview with a young white bureaucrat who does her best to help Souleymane make his case without judging him for trying to play the system. Nina Meurisse won the César for Best Supporting Actress for her performance and there are echoes in this scene of Anthony Woodley's The Flood (2019), in which Lena Headey plays an immigration officer who takes pity on Eritrean Ivanno Jeremiah. However, the César-winning screenplay by Lojkine and Delphine Agut, which also draws on actual case histories, is more cohesive and less emotionally manipulative and often brings to mind Laura Carreira's On Falling (2024), which also contains a harrowing interview scene. At times, this plays like a thriller. But this is unflinchingly gritty insight into an iniquitously demeaning form of Sisyphean existence that we allow to go unchecked because of our consumerist complacency and arrogant sense of entitled superiority.

MADLY.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Paolo Genovese's Perfect Strangers (2016) is the most remade film of all time, with 24 versions centring on dinner guests who come to regret sharing the text secrets of their mobile phones. Another supper sitting provides the starting point for Madly (aka Follmemente), which is the latest offering from the good people at CinemaItaliaUK. With its wisps of wit and ingenuity, this genially enjoyable romcom is bound to attract imitators, although it's probably not destined for the record books.

As 50 year-old Piero (Edoardo Leo) stands outside a chemist shop gazing at a slot machine, his brain crew - Eros (Claudio Santamaria), Romeo (Maurizio Lastrico), Professore (Marco Giallini), and Valium (Rocco Papaleo) - debate whether it's presumptious to buy a condom on a first date and what each make says about the purchaser. Meanwhile, 35 year-old Lara (Pilar Fogliati) and her team - Trilli (Emanuela Fanelli), Giulietta (Vittoria Puccini), Alfa (Claudia Pandolfi), and Scheggia (Maria Ciara Giannetta) - wonder whether they've done the right thing inviting a comparative stranger to dine in her flat, while experimenting with lighting effects.

Looking up from the pavement, Pierro sees the lights flashing like a disco before stumbling through the darkness on being told the door is open. Still unsure whether she should have worn such a short dress, Lara pours wine and regrets saying that she doesn't like leaving her nest when Piero thanks her for inviting him over. Each utterance merits a cutaway to a numskull reaction, as his wise men squash into what looks like a factory office, while her streetwise quartet huddle in a trendily decorated pied-à-terre. Each is aware they are over-thinking and second-guessing everything, but they're both nervous and keen to make a good impression without wishing to appear over-eager before they have sussed the other out.

As she tries to decide whether to follow the feminist line of Carla Lonzi and pour the wine or let the man do it, Lara gets flustered when the over clock pings and suggests they lie down on the table. Still embarrassed by listing the kind of places he doesn't go out to, Piero is happy to laugh at the ice-breaking faux pas and they are more relaxed as they sit down to lasagna. Seeking something to say, Lara recalls an acting class exercise in which she had to imagine her partner as a boy and they decide to play the game (while not taking it seriously in their heads while gazing at each other intensely).

He guesses she was a poised tween and a moody adolescent, while she guesses he was a calm boy. Nodding, he admits that he had a girlfriend at an early age because he liked stability. But there is consternation among all the numskulls when she jokes that she was a teenage nymphomaniac and she's relieved when he responds phlegmatically.

Piero is also helpful when she gets the hiccups and he makes her jump by roaring at her. She is relieved to have been cured so quickly and they are discussing things they only do when they're alone when she hiccups again. He is showing her how to drink from the wrong side of the glass when his phone goes off and Lara notices a picture of his young daughter on the screen as he scuttles off to take the call. Her crew debate whether he's a married sleazeball or a caring dad, as she eavesdrops on Piero reassuring Rosa that her friends still like her after they argue while watching a film.

Bashful, he returns to the table and makes sure she knows he's divorced (much to the relief of her unit), as he tries to explain how tricky it is trying simultaneously to be a parent and a friend. Both sets of numskulls scrabble through filing cabinets, as they seek the right word to make Pierro sound sensitive, but firm and Lara seem accepting and impressed. As he reveals how hard it was not being with Rosa each day, she says she finds it touching that he is such a doting father.

Feeling the need to say something, she claims the furniture she restores and sells in her shop are like her children and her brainiacs are appalled by her miscalculation. But Piero smiles indulgently, as she explains how she likes to imagine the lives of their previous owners. However, he is more taken aback when she volunteers that she has had her eggs frozen and goes into too much detail when he admits to having seen some eggs in an ultrasound scan. Back at an awkward place, the pair fall silent and their brains trusts argue amongst themselves over whose fault the misspeakings were.

As he looks away at a text from his ex telling him to collect his daughter, Piero is surprised when Lara offers to come with him rather than ending the date. He insists Rosa will be fine at her slumber party and is amused when Lara asks if he is so intuitive when it comes to the high schoolers he teaches. He regrets not pursuing a career in academe, but admits the competition was too strong. At that moment, a loud cheer rings out from the courtyard and he admits that he is missing the local football derby and has to check the score on his phone. Lara's crew are not impressed by him being a sports fan and mock when he claims that his promising playing career was ruined by an injury. However, Lara shows him the scooter scar on her shoulder and they trade childhood nicks until she wins by revealing the hammer left from the Communist tattoo she has had partially removed from her neck.

Just as they are pausing at the start of a potential kiss, the doorbell rings and Lara goes down to see a man in the courtyard. Piero's foursome comment on the nick-nacks he finds as he wanders round the room and try to work out Lara's personality. Peering through the window, he sees her chatting defensively and suggests that he should leave when she returns carrying a large box from the married man she's been seeing. She thinks it's best that he should go, but Piero buys time by wondering what the gift is and wishes he hadn't bothered when she finds an engagement ring in a nest of boxes.

Furious with her lover for trying to swoon her into commitment when he won't leave his wife, Lara claims all men are the same and are clueless when it comes to knowing what women want. When he protests, she makes Piero describe what she is wearing and he does well enough for her to let him off the hook. For now. She lights a camomile cigarette and the numskulls get giggly in the fug, as inhibitions start to tumble. Both sets celebrate the first kiss and then offer advice as Lara and Piero tumble into the bedroom ripping at clothing.

There's disappointment in both camps when Piero climaxes too soon, but a cunnilingual save has Lara's ladies teetering along a thin line together, as his lads urge Eros to pedal faster on an exercise bike to ensure Piero keeps going. As the couple flop back beside each other, the numskulls simultaneously rip into their own versions of Queen's `Somebody to Love', complete with pounding drums and falsetto harmonies (very funny).

Following pillow talk about past lovers and what else they could get up to in bed, Lara excuses herself after comparing their coupling to being with a huggable dog. She regrets saying something that could be misinterpreted and peeps through the bathroom door, as Piero dresses. Her quartet debate whether he's planning to kiss and run, but they are relieved when he goes to the freezer to fetch the ice cream he had brought and Lara slips on his shirt so they can sit on the sofa and indulge. Realising they feel good together, but acutely aware they are still relative strangers, they discuss tomorrow's tasks and Lara hints that it's getting late. She slips on a red Che Guevara t-shirt and starts to tidy away. Piero offers to recycle the bottles and leaves with an awkward kiss.

Crestfallen, Lara closes the bedroom door and sits on the bed. As the doorbell rings, the female numskulls tentatively open their door to find their male counterparts standing outside. They discuss the night, with its missteps, gauche utterances, and moments of quiet trust and overdue pleasure. Debating the wisdom and practicality of the guys lingering for a while, they are guided by Romeo and Giulietta, who think they've found someone they can be comfortable with. Romeo announces that he's hungry and, as Giulietta helps him cook spaghetti, with oil and chilli, we cut to Lara and Piero preparing the same meal with watchful smiles that broaden, as they try to maintain their dignity in front of one another while slurping spaghetti.

We'll never know whether the Truly and Deeply will follow on from the Madly, but Genovese and co-writers Isabella Aguilar, Lucia Calamaro, Paolo Costella, and Flaminia Gressi leave us with reasons to hope at the end of this deftly observed treatise on the laws of attraction and the rules of the dating game. It would probably work just as well with Edoard Leo and the excellent Pilar Fogliati being left to their own devices, as they are splendidly matched and Genovese neatly defies the 180° axis to convey the shifting balance between Lara and Piero, as they seek to discover more about their date without giving away anything to damning about themselves. Fabrizio Lucci's camerawork and Consuelo Catucci's editing conspire to make the action both intimate and wary. But it takes a while for the parallel plotline to get up to speed, despite the knowing performances and the amusing contrasts in the interiors created by production designer Massimiliano Sturiale and set decorator, Ilaria Fallacara.

Drawn by Malcolm Judge, `The Numskulls' was a comic strip that ran in The Beezer from 1962 until 1979 before subsequently featuring in both The Beano and The Dandy. This made inspired use of little people operating the controls and making the decisions for a balding man who was blithely ignorant of their existence. The conceit was copied for the American sitcom, Herman's Head (1991-94), as well as for a 1999 RAI commercial directed by Genovese himself and Luca Miniero. More recently, it was refined for children by Pete Docter's Inside Out (2015) and Kelsey Mann's Inside Out 2 (2024). In the Pixar duo, colour and character design was used to make it clear what to expect from Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger as they sought to do the best for young Riley Andersen. But Genovese and his fellow scribes opt not to spend time introducing the brain people, as they have decided to reveal aspects of Lara and Piero's personalities as the evening progresses. However, this means that we never really get to know who Professore, Valium, Eros and Romeo are (indeed, the latter pair are the only two to be named on-screen) or why Alfa, Trilli, Scheggia, and Giulietta are their counterparts espousing logic, lust, rebellion, and romance.

Initially, the cutaways to their conflabs feel as self-conscious as those in Family Guy (1999-). But, as Genovese starts to leave longer pauses and has Leo and Fogliati exchange awkward looks while the numskulls argue among themselves, the conceit begins to work better. The scramble through filing cabinets to find synonyms during proves the turning point, while the Queen pastiches are triumphantly hilarious. It's debatable whether the denouementary rapprochement quite comes off, but we'll settle for the charming sight of Piero and Lara's eyes meeting as they twirl their forks in the pan and unself-consciously slurp spaghetti as though they've known each other for years.

GOOD BOY.

Screen history is littered with examples of film-makers crafting pictures to showcase their paramours. Ben Leonberg has done things a little differently, however, as he has written, directed, photographed, and edited Good Boy for his Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. What's more, Indy lived up to the title, as he was given exclusive entry by the SXSW Film Festival to its newly formed `Howl of Fame'.

When Todd (Shane Jensen) leaves New York to move into the woodland cabin left by his grandfather, sister Vera (Arielle Friedman) makes her feelings known down the phone. She not only frets because Todd has a chronic lung condition, but she also believes the remote house is haunted and that this contributed to the old man's death. Todd insists that the fresh air will do him good and reminds Vera that he will not be alone, as his faithful dog, Indy, is coming with him.

While Todd has no qualms about moving into the property, Indy refuses to leave the car and pauses before going inside, as he thinks he can hear another dog whining in the cellar. When Todd goes down the steps to check the fuses, Indy remains at alert, as he senses a presence lurking in the shadows. While Todd is unconcerned, Indy keeps getting fleeting glimpses of a skeletal figure that appears to be dripping with thick mud - the visual equivalent of those whistle sounds that dogs can hear and humans cannot.

During a walk to the family cemetery in the woods, Todd and Indy run into Richard (Stuart Rubin), the heavily camouflaged neighbour who had found grandpa (Larry Fessenden) after he died, although he had seen no sign of his golden retriever, Bandit. He extends condolences and a cautious welcome and warns Todd to keep Indy away from the traps he has set for the foxes that roam the area. Richard also lends them a spare generator, although Todd seems reluctant to let socialising become a regular thing.

Back at the cabin, Indy keeps catching glimpses of the spectral figure. He also sees Bandit, who leads him to an upstairs room, where Indy crouches down beside the wardrobe to spot the red bandana that Bandit had always worn. That night, Indy has a dream about grandfather wheezing and coughing in the same way that Todd does and he wakes when the dark entity stalks him and prepares to pounce.

Despite reassuring Vera that he is fine, Todd's health starts to decline. He coughs up blood and becomes short-tempered with Indy, who is simply seeking reassurances that his master is okay. One night, Indy is roused from sleep to find Todd wandering around the house. He bangs his head against the cellar door before drifting off to sleep. Keeping guard, Indy sees the menacing figure approaching the bedroom and flees in panic when he sees Todd collapse, as the spectre closes the door.

Intending to find Richard in the hope he can help, Indy gets caught in one of his fox traps and a furious Todd cuts him free and chains him to a post in the garden. Indy remains on the alert and waits for Todd to collect him, but he can only hear him coughing inside the house. As night falls, the phantom creeps towards Indy, who seeks sanctuary in his kennel. In his agitation, the dog knocks the structure over and pulls his chain anchor out of the ground. Bolting towards the house, Indy finds the outside door of the cellar open and darts inside.

He stumbles upon Bandit's skeleton and realises that the sinister figure is on the loose inside the cabin. Charging upstairs, he arrives to see a distressed Todd lying on the bed. Nuzzling against him, Indy is rewarded with an apologetic welcome. But, when Todd rolls over, he is confronted by his own corpse and he realises that he must have died. When the wraith reappears and starts dragging Todd towards the cellar, Indy follows behind. But Todd is resigned to his fate and tells Indy to be a good boy and stay, as he is swallowed up by the slime in a chasmal tunnel.

The next morning, Vera comes to the house and finds her brother's body. She sees Indy sitting at the foot of the cellar stairs and calls him. He pauses on hearing Todd whistling from the depths of the tunnel, but eventually starts to climb the stairs towards the light of a new day.

Had this ingeniously made film premiered at Cannes, it would have been a shoo-in for the Palme Dog, as Indy is a natural performer. Glossily chestnut-brown, he is naturally photogenic. But, with his expressive eyes and alert intelligence, he also has the ability to convey a range of emotions that enable Leonberg to tell his ghost story from his pet's perspective. Clearly knowing the dog well, he is able to elicit the necessary responses for the camera to suggest that Indy is aware that the silhouetted apparition poses a threat to his owner. But Leonberg also makes adept use of the Kuleshov Effect to convince viewers through associational montage that Indy is seeing what they think he is seeing.

For all his wrangling and editing skills - note how we don't see a single human face throughout the entire running time - Leonberg and co-writer Alex Cannon still resort to the occasional contrivance to move the story along. Todd's decline is rather conveniently sudden, while his mood swings make him excessively cruel towards the ever-loyal Indy, who has no way of telling him of the dark forces he has witnessed at work. Richard and Vera are also kept at an overly convenient distance, while Todd's refusal to heed their warnings makes it seem as though he his stubbornness is entangled with a death wish.

Taking over 400 days over three years to capture each quizzical head cocking or arching of an inquisitive eyebrow, this was evidently a labour of love for a feature debutant who had made a dozen shorts since the turn of the century. Great care was obviously taken over the placement of light sources, which reinforce the atmospheric ambiguity as much as Kelly Oostman's sound design, which is itself complemented by Sam Boase-Miller's unsettling score. Credit should also go to production designer, Alison Diviney, and producer Kari Fischer, who (as Leonberg's wife) was able to help with putting Indy through his paces. One can only hope he got more than his fair share of Scooby Snacks!

NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCALYPSE.

An unpublished story by horror icon Clive Barker provides the inspiration for Rodrigo Perez-Castro and Ricardo Curtis's Night of the Zoopocalypse. Moreover, the Liverpudlian who penned the source material for Candyman (1992), Rawhead Rex (1986), and The Midnight Meat Train (2008) and personally directed Hellraiser (1987), Nightbreed (1990), and Lord of Illusions (1995), has taken a producing credit on an animated feature that goes for laughs and life lessons, while also tossing in the occasional scare.

In Colepepper Zoo in western Canada, Gracie the timber wolf (Gabbi Kosmidis) runs rings around the other members of the pack in a training exercise organised by her grandmother, Abigale (Carolyn Scott). She refuses to trust other animals and reminds Gracie that something bad is always likely to happen. The youngster scoffs as she watches a dangerous new animal being deposited in its enclosure. But, that night, a meteor hits the park and a tiny purple fragment is eaten by a rabbit in the Kuddle Korner petting zoo and it starts to mutate into a zombie in a glowing pod.

Having seen the crash, Gracie slips out of her enclosure and is almost grabbed by an arm sticking out of the pod. She flees and lands in front of Dan (David Harbour), a mountain lion who is furious at being captured in the wild. He chases Gracie with a view to devouring her, only for them both to be hit with tranquiliser darts by the on-duty keeper. They wake to find themselves caged in the vet station, where a red ruffed lemur named Xavier (Pierre Simpson) is suffering from his latest feigned illness so that he can watch horror movies on TV. He is explaining the rules of the late-night matinee when an infestation of zombunnies bursts in and the creatures have to flee.

Xavier winds up in the gift shop with know-all proboscis monkey Felix (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), caustic ostrich Ash (Scott Thompson), and plucky capybara Frida (Heather Loreto). He starts telling them how zombie scenarios tend to play out on screen, while Gracie and Dan discover that the wolf pack has gone bad. Having managed to escape from Fred the rampaging zombie gorilla (Kyle Derek) and find a pygmy hippo named Poot (Christina Nova) hiding in the play area ball pit, Gracie and Dan agree to join forces to fight the foe. The podgy Poot is still a baby and has no idea of the seriousness of the situation, even when they are chased by Fred (who has somehow merged with a rabid giraffe) and get trapped in a cable car gondola.

Somehow Gracie and Poot escape, but Dan is bitten and tries to attack them in the zoo office. However, some soapy water seems to restore the lion to health and Gracie is dismayed when he announces that he is more interested in finding the passkey to the main gate than he is in helping his fellow creatures. Felix proves equally selfish and makes off with the key when Dan has a change of heart and decides that the surviving animals need to stand together. While Felix is attacked by some pesky tree frogs, Gracie and Poot reach the gift shop, where Xavier is outlining what usually happens in Act Three of a creature feature.

After she gives a rousing speech, they agree to go along with Gracie's plan to lure the Gum-Beasts to Dan's enclosure and squirt them with suds. While Frida and Poot collect all the soap powder they can find, Ash and Xavier round up the animals and everything seems to be going to plan when a zombified elephant collides with the post of the water tower and it bursts to create a giant bubble bath. However, the soap doesn't return things to normal, as the various critters meld into a single monster and Gracie and Dan have to seek shelter in the gift shop. She is appalled to see that Poot has been infected, but she would rather play with a musical snow globe than menace them. On hearing the tune, Poot is cured and Gracie realise that it must have been the music playing on the office radio that had turned Dan back to normal when he was covered in lather.

Knowing that music plays through the zoo tannoy at seven o'clock, Gracie climbs up the clock face and, fending off both Felix and the Bunny Zero, succeeds in moving the hands so that the theme tune belts out and everyone is restored to health. Fred and Felix are reunited, Ash and Xavier agree to become best friends, and Abigale accepts that other animals might not be too bad after all. But Dan tells Gracie that he has to go back to the wild and he leaves her the key in case she ever gets tired of captivity.

There's a good deal to pack into this CGI animation and the story is taken at a lively clip. Aware that children across the target age range will be able to cope with varying degrees of terror, the makers haven't overdone the horror, although the scene of Bunny Zero chowing down on some helpless prey might disturb some tinies. Apart from this incident, no one dies, as this is about contagion rather than carnivorousness. The zombies are slimy in appearance and glow green, but they are much more figures of fun than fright. Indeed, Bunny Zero recalls Snowball from The Secret Life of Pets (2016), while the overall tone is less disturbing than in another revenant tale for kids, Abe Forsythe's Little Monsters (2019).

The voiceovers are serviceable, but the character design is unappealing, with Gracie and Dan looking little like a timber wolf or a mountain lion. Nevertheless, the messages about preparedness, loyalty, teamwork, and accepting others are conveyed without undue schmaltz, while the pros and cons of zoos are floated in the farewell exchange. Grown-ups might also enjoy the Scream-like meta-commentary provided by Xavier and the throwaway references to genre classics like George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1969). But most will be relieved that this inferior successor to the likes of Monster House (2006) and ParaNorman (2012) will provoke more giggly shivers than nightmares.