The first scene of Cryptozoo, the new animated film written and directed by Dash Shaw and animated by Jane Samborski, is a psychedelic sex scene in the woods. The hippie characters having sex in this opening scene stay naked for the duration of the film. One fantasizes about storming the U.S. Capitol, which plays about as awkwardly today as the plane crash in Donnie Darko did right after 9/11. Before the film even reaches its title card, someone has been gored to death by a unicorn, which gets its skull smashed in as revenge.
Those first few minutes quickly establish that Cryptozoo is absolutely not for children. Not only is this the rare American animated feature aimed exclusively at adults, but it's also clear this is a throwback to the general style of adult animation from the 1960s and '70s. Though composited digitally, the sketchbook characters and collage cut-out creatures would appear right at home next to the likes of Fantastic Planet, Belladonna of Sadness and Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations.
The '60s vibes are not simply visual but built straight into the setting. After its somewhat elliptical introduction, it's quickly established this story takes place in the '60s. Its main character, Lauren Grey, was inspired to become a cryptozoologist by the baku, a Japanese dream-eating cryptid that soothed her nightmares growing up on a post-war Okinawan military base. She brings the creatures she catches to the Cryptozoo, a theme park that hopes to bring acceptance to these misunderstood beings. The military has other ideas, wanting to use the baku and other cryptids to crush the counterculture.
For all the surreal style of Cryptoozoo, the film's storytelling actually ends up being fairly straightforward beyond its semi-elliptical opening sequence (we eventually get back to the unicorn-killer, though it's kind of a narrative afterthought). It's basically a rescue mission mixed with a Jurassic Park-esque cautionary tale. It's actually a good thing the plot's not as weird as the visuals -- otherwise, the whole film would simply be too overwhelming.
However, there's not a whole lot to latch onto emotionally with the film. There are some bursts of visceral body horror, a few solid laughs and some genuinely clever narrative turns, but generally, it's more a film to admire for its creative animation than the most interesting story overall. For all its trippy and clever touches, the part that sticks in the mind the most is that awkward "storming the Capitol" fantasy. Any present-day implications are certainly accidental, yet there's something oddly apropos about its inclusion in a film where even the most well-meaning idealists come to realize they might be in the wrong.
Cryptozoo premiered at Sundance on Jan. 29, and has an encore on-demand screening on Jan. 31. It features the voices of Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Angeliki Papoulia, Zoe Kazan, Peter Stormare, Grace Zabriskie, Louisa Krause and Thomas Jay Ryan. No further release plans have been announced yet.