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sleeplessgreaser · 2 months

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Animal Room (1995)

Directed by Craig Singer, starring Matthew Lillard and Neil Patrick Harris, this movie is WILD. If you like Matthew Lillard, or you just enjoy strange and obscure movies, it's possible you've heard of this one! Well, I decided to write an essay on it, because I have autism I love this movie for some odd reason. Also, it is impossible to google information about this movie so consider this my version of Wikipedia for the movie, Animal Room.

WARNING: This movie, and the following post, contains a lot of dark themes. Please be aware that this movie includes murder, suicide, peer abuse, substance abuse, domestic abuse, animal abuse, rape, religious themes, satanic themes, gun violence, and very graphic depictions of pretty much all of the above.

Still interested? Alright, let's get into it then. (Also, this is really long, sorry.)

This movie is strange, confusing, terrifying, shocking, and downright disturbing. It supposedly takes place in the near future, though the exact year isn’t defined, and this can be seen through odd clothing styles and the occasionally weird setting choices. I would say a lot of it is inspired by the suburban gothic dystopian genre? (Niche, I know, but stay with me here.) Topped off with a hint of The Matrix… are you still here? Okay, cool, because it’s only going to get weirder.

First off, we need to know all of the characters, and there are a lot. Many characters have their names mentioned in passing, and as a result we don’t really know who is who, so I will do my best to explain them all.

The first person we see is known as Pink, played by Ryan Payne Bell. He’s a pale redhead with frizzy hair, typically seen wearing a bowler hat and trench coat. Pink is a part of Doug Van Housen’s gang, who we soon find hanging out on the pier of a seemingly abandoned carnival. Doug, often referred to as simply ‘Van Housen’, is played by Matthew Lillard. He has jet-black hair, styled in a messy bowl cut, and he wears multiple different outfits throughout the movie, always consisting of whites and blacks. His style could only be described as “modern vampiric”. (Which actually makes a lot of sense, once you get to know him.) His girlfriend, Shelly, played by Lori Heuring, has long blond hair and can usually be found hanging off of Doug’s arm. The other members of the gang include Eddie, Porky, and Hinge. Eddie LeMaster, played by Brian Vincent, has short brown hair and is usually wearing a leather jacket or a sleeveless shirt. Porky, played by Eddie Malavarca, can easily be recognized by his bright red (sometimes black) bandana and curly black hair. And finally, Hinge, played by Dechen Thurman, has straight brown hair that comes down to his shoulders and is always carrying, if not actively reading, a book.

As far as I can tell, the hierarchy of the gang is as follows: Doug is the leader, Shelly is his “consort” of sorts (she isn’t really treated as part of the gang, but more like an ally who gets special treatment), Hinge is Doug’s confidant while Eddie is the main instigator, and Porky and Pink are the goons who hang around just to be a part of the fun and do what they’re told. Hinge and Eddie seem to be important to Doug – Eddie is loud and excitable, likes to start shit and cause chaos, while Hinge is quiet and reserved and silently encourages Doug’s bad behavior. We see throughout the movie that Doug is often annoyed by Eddie’s behavior (along with Pink’s and Porky’s), whereas with Hinge he seems to enjoy his company. We see him often leaning on Hinge’s shoulder, listening to him explain complex topics or just zoning out while Hinge is reading a book. Their relationship is subtle, as Doug treats Hinge as if they were friends, meanwhile with the other three he’s a bit more leader-ly.

Eventually we meet our protagonist, Arnold Mosk, played by Neil Patrick Harris. Arnie is a young boy, with short blond hair and thin glasses, who is actively dealing with a drug problem. In his free time, Arnie sneaks into the school auditorium and takes hallucinogens while sitting out in front of the stage. He has no friends (minus Gary), no social life, and he talks like an absolute nerd with a cynical, nihilistic, and severely depressive outlook on life. Here’s an actual quote from him when someone asked him “What happened?”: “Oh, nothing untypical. Barbarians rarely capitulate.” … I mean, come on. Is it any wonder he gets bullied?

Anyways, we learn that the school has designed a special “class” of sorts for troublesome students, and Arnie (being a drug addict) has to be a part of that class. As a result, he’s become a target for Van Housen and his gang – well at least, he’s become a bigger target than before. There are two adults in the school who are important to the story, the principal and a teacher who acts as Arnie’s therapist. Principal Jones, played by Stephen Pearlman, is the secondary antagonist of the story, as his choice to continue the use of the "Class for Troublesome Kids" is the main issue for our protagonist, and Doug Van Housen’s abuse is simply a result of it. Meanwhile, Doctor Rankin, played by Joesph Siflavo, is Arnie’s only advocate on the schoolboard as he actively argues against the use of the "Class for Troublesome Kids" or, at the very least, that Arnie doesn’t belong in there. Throughout the movie, Arnie visits Rankin’s office to confide in him about his troubles, and in turn Rankin tries to convince him to stop using drugs.

This special class, known by the students as the ‘Animal Room’, seems to be either an all-day class or at least a homeroom for the students that are assigned to it. Principal Jones claims that the class is for the sake of the 95% of students who are not troublesome, and that the 5% who are should simply be kept away from the rest so that the majority can succeed. However, this means that the 5% of students who are not a part of the “good” population are rounded up together and left to fight amongst themselves. This classroom is found in a basement area, at the end of a long hallway filled with short flights of stairs and graffiti, and security guards sit (or, most often, sleep) outside the door. In this classroom, we find Doug Van Housen and the rest of his gang (minus Shelly) and some other students who have been deemed troublesome, such as ‘Baldy’ (more on him later) and Arnie. This room is filled with shoddy desks and chairs, cement walls lined with pipes and ductwork, and a single television which is always playing the same thing: a recording of a man dressed in all black, similar to the security guards, with slicked back hair and wearing matrix-style sunglasses. This man is usually inaudible, but is always speaking in a very authoritative tone and staring directly at the camera. Watching this TV seems to be the only thing in the classroom the students are “permitted” to do, although there is rarely a teacher, or even a security guard, inside the room to stop them from doing otherwise. If things start to get loud, however, the guards outside will come in to stop it.

Next, we meet Gary Trancer, played by Gabriel Olds. He’s Arnie’s only friend, and apparently has been his friend since they were kids, but in the past few years they’ve grown apart. Gary’s girlfriend, Debbie, played by Amanda Peet, apparently either temporarily dated or had a one-night stand with Eddie LeMaster, and as a result Eddie holds a grudge against Gary for “stealing his girl”. This, combined with Gary’s brave attempts to protect Arnie from the school bullies, makes him into a target as well.

Now that we know all the characters and their roles, let’s get into the actual story. First off, we truly learn just how bad things are at this school when Van Housen’s gang ambushes Arnie in the bathroom, and I’m begging you to skip the rest of this paragraph if you’d rather not be horrified by something that is so terrifyingly real it truly sickens me. Ready? Doug begins to beat Arnie, while Pink and Eddie are taunting him and Hinge is flicking the light switch on and off like it’s some kind of nightmare. We see Porky walk out of a bathroom stall, buckling his pants, and the boys grab Arnie and drag him into the stall, while he’s struggling and crying. Doug, who’s standing over the toilet facing Arnie, grabs him by the back of the head and shoves him face-first into the bowl filled with Porky’s shit. Arnie is gagging, suffocating, and essentially being drowned, until finally he stops struggling and allows himself to go still. The gang leaves him there, gasping, coughing, and puking on the floor of the bathroom. This scene may not be as bad in writing, but actually watching it play out legitimately made me feel sick.

Soon after, we see Arnie and Doug sitting in the principal’s office – Arnie, looking half-dead, and Doug playfully giving himself paperclip nails. The principal sits down and begins to scold both of them, as if Arnie had been equally in the wrong, and then proceeds to deal out zero punishment.

We then see Doug making his way home. He walks through a cemetery, passes by a lone guitar player sitting on a small dock playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (No. 14 in C-sharp Minor). His home is a giant mansion, and when he walks in he immediately strips naked in front of his butler, then walks up the stairs, leaving the butler to pick up his clothes. Meanwhile, Arnold is having a hallucination about being at a bar with creepy old men, presumably the one where he got his drugs, and is being strip-teased by a woman in white lingerie while a baby cries in the distance.

I warned you that this movie was wild, and it's only going to get wilder from here!

The next thing that happens is that Van Housen’s gang, along with Shelly, bursts into the home of Shelly’s family (Shelly being Doug’s girlfriend, in case you forgot). Her mother is upstairs taking a bath, while her father and brother are sitting at the table eating dinner. Once again, if you'd rather not be traumatized by the horrifying actions of Doug Van Housen then I suggest you skip the rest of this paragraph. They start taunting and torturing her father, who is confined to a wheelchair and begins to have trouble breathing. Eddie grabs a trash bag and pulls it over her father’s head, suffocating him for a moment before dragging him out of his chair, meanwhile Doug has climbed the stairs to interrogate Shelly’s mother, who is now wearing a bathrobe. Doug asks for the gun owned by Shelly’s father, threatening to rape the mother among other things. She slaps him, then gets the gun and asks him to leave. As the gang heads out the door, Eddie hangs back and pulls Doug aside, whispering something. The camera cuts to Shelly’s mother, sitting on the stairs, and Eddie walks up, grabs her by the hair and drags her to the bedroom as she screams.

I warned you, this movie is disturbing.

Later, in Dr. Rankin’s office, Arnie tells him a story about how a group of thugs once beat up Van Housen, and how slowly, over the next year, each of those thugs disappeared and were eventually found dead.

Later that day, Gary visits Arnie’s home to discuss how they’ve grown apart. He wants to reconnect, and they talk about going on a trip to the Caribbean, something they had always dreamed of doing back when they were children. They decide to finally take that trip in the summer, as soon as their final year of high school is over and before Gary has to leave for college. It’s important to note that Gary is the only person in the school, besides Dr. Rankin, who treats Arnie like a regular human being. Everyone else, even casual peers, see him as a freak or weirdo. Also, once Gary leaves, Arnie scolds his mother for being a drunk, and for acting weird when Gary came to visit. (To be fair, she was acting very weird, but it was obviously out of innocence, and I don’t think she deserved to be scolded like that by her own son.)

When we get to see Doug Van Housen’s room, we learn a bit more about who he is as a person, and Why He's Like That. Religious paraphernalia, paintings and statues line the walls alongside gothic hanging lamps and candles. His bed has a gigantic headboard, and we see him lying in bed wearing reading glasses, looking through a book that mentions King Henry VI.

We now get to meet Baldy, played by Huckleberry Fox, in the Animal Room. He’s drawing at his desk, while Van Housen’s gang is discussing hypotheticals, and Doug walks over and begins messing with him. Doug starts nosing the side of Baldy’s face, whispering in his ear tauntingly, then spits on the back of his head, where we see he has a tattoo of a ghoul. Baldy jumps up, turning around to yell “Why are you such a filthy scumbag?!” The gang all jump to defend him before a guard walks in to break it up.

Arnie has a hallucination about the carnival, where he finds the rotting corpse of Doug Van Housen wrapped up in plastic like a game prize. Doug asks him, “Do you see what your friend did to me?”

We cut to Baldy, who is helping to run a recording session for the band, Misfits (yes, the real band), and Van Housen’s gang is sneaking into the studio. When he isn’t looking, they sneak into the room and grab him. The band, on the other side of the glass (which is apparently one sided, as they can’t seem to see the events on the other side) begins playing again while the gang begins to interrogate Baldy for calling Doug a “filthy scumbag”. After a few minutes of torment, they shove Baldy to the ground and Doug begins slamming his head into the floor. The others look afraid, Eddie yells at him to stop, Baldy is bleeding and has gone limp. Doug wipes a hand over Baldy’s face, kisses his forehead and says “Goodnight.”

We then cut to Baldy’s father, sitting at home and staring at a picture of him, then we cut back to the gang who has now moved to their usual hangout on the carnival pier.

Shelly arrives (she must have gone home for a bit, since she had been there when Doug killed Baldy), and she’s holding a small rabbit. Porky and Pink are cooing over it, and Shelly brings the rabbit over to Doug for him to hold. She watches as he twists the bunny’s neck, killing it, and she begins crying and screaming hysterically. Porky and Pink decide to escort her home, Hinge and Eddie leave soon after, and Doug is left alone.

Pink, who is now seen walking around town, is cornered by Baldy’s father who pulls out a gun and shoots him. He falls dead on the street.

At school, in the Animal Room, Eddie pulls the fire alarm. Everyone is evacuated out of the building, but Doug corners Arnie and keeps him from leaving. Doug begins telling him the story of Job from the bible. Oh, and also he tells Arnie, “I want your blood in my mouth.”

Later, in Dr. Rankin’s office when Arnie is recounting the event to him, Rankin admits to Arnie that he’s going to be leaving the school due to a job offer. Arnie leaves, and when we next see him he has a gun. He pretends he’s pointing it at Doug, then considers pointing it at himself. We see him sitting in the school hallway, leaning against the lockers and fiddling with the gun. He puts the gun in his mouth, and a teacher and janitor catch him before he pulls the trigger. He points the gun at the janitor, who pulls out his own gun and shoots him.

Arnie ends up in the hospital, in a coma. His mother and Gary are there with him.

Van Housen’s gang, which has now dwindled to only four members, is once again hanging out on the carnival pier. Gary approaches them, holding a gun and pointing it directly at Doug. Doug makes Hinge, Eddie and Porky leave, then stands with his arms out, daring Gary to shoot. Gary screams, shooting off five rounds, each one missing Van Housen. Doug walks to Gary, carefully taking the gun from his hands. He shoots the last round into the air, then leaves with his friends.

Debbie (Gary’s girlfriend) is throwing a party. Gary is there, but sitting alone in another room, away from the other guests. Through the doors come bursting Eddie and Porky, behind them is Hinge who has Doug hanging off of him. As Doug steps out from behind Hinge we see he’s sporting a brand new look. His hair is slicked back, and a dark red circular mark is branded onto his forehead. His face is pale, and he’s wearing all black. The gang leaves, and it’s just Gary and Doug, alone.

Doug says he’s going to hurt Arnie as soon as he’s out of the hospital, and Gary tackles him. They immediately begin throwing punches, until Doug gets his hands around Gary’s throat and begins choking him. Doug tosses him to the ground, then pulls out the gun he took from him. Doug sits down on the floor, setting the gun in front of him and Gary grabs it, putting it directly to Doug’s forehead who then pulls his hand down to point the gun into his mouth. Gary backs away, dropping the gun fearfully.

Doug says, “Gary. I will be there when your children wake up. I will be there when you get married. I will be there at your next birthday. I will be there when little Arnie gets out of the hospital. You hear what I’m saying to you, Gary? I will always be there.”

“I will always be there.”

On the wall is a decorative sword. Gary takes it down as Van Housen holds his arms out, once again inviting him to make a move. Gary slashes the sword across his chest, mimicking Doug’s corpse in Arnie’s hallucination. Doug falls limply to the ground.

The police are called.

Officers walk into the room.

Doug is still holding the sword.

They shoot him.

My Thoughts:

Okay, so first of all, Gary was too good for this world. He was the only likeable character in the entire movie, and I was devastated when he died, especially because it was so sudden and they really make you think he’s in the clear. Second, Doug Van Housen, and his group, are absolutely fascinating to me. Their dynamics are just so intriguing, especially the one between Doug and Hinge. Of course, there are so many oddities about this movie that it all feels like a fever dream. The clothing choices, the symbolism, the dialogue, it’s all so wild.

Honestly, I don’t know if I would recommend this movie. On one hand I think it is fascinating, and could be very interesting to some people, but on the other hand it is hard to understand and will likely just leave you questioning things. You’re telling me Doug Van Housen has killed at least five people and faced no charges for any of those murders, when clearly everyone knows he did it? And then when Pink is killed, no one mourns him, and his death is barely even recognized by the characters. Baldy’s father had two seconds of screentime: mourning his child, and shooting Pink. That event is never acknowledged after that. Then, Shelly was so in love with Doug that she forgot who he was, she forgot that he’s a psychopath. She thought she was special, but she wasn’t. He kills her rabbit and then she’s gone, and we don’t see her again. And what about her family? They tortured Shelly’s mother and father, and they just chose not to press charges?? And last but not least, Arnold, who ended up in a coma, is going to wake up one day and find out that his only friend is dead. He was already suicidal, his mother might as well pull the plug and let him go because as soon as he finds out about Gary he’ll probably try to off himself anyways.

Really, the only way to truly understand the movie is to watch it for yourself. As far as I know there is basically no way to buy it anywhere online, and no streaming services have it. Thankfully, someone on youtube has uploaded the whole thing for free. You can find it easily just by looking it up! If you want to know when certain things happen (so that you can skip them or skip to them) or if you have any questions regarding the movie, feel free to shoot me a message or leave a comment!

#animal room #animal room 1995 #doug van housen #matthew lillard #neil patrick harris #obscure movies #movie review #sleepless rants

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