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Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13. |
Animalia is a 2024 anime-2D animation mixed fantasy-horror-mystery film directed by Michael Schaack, Sergio Pablos, and Tatsuya Nagamine, and written by Luke Pearson and Shōji Yonemura. The story centers on anthropomorphic bengal cat Sam and the grisly mysterious kidnappings and murders taking place in her friendly animal neighborhood.
Plot[]
Sam Tigerton, a 6-year old anthropomorphic intelligent and sweet bengal kitten girl, gets dressed and gets prepared to enjoy breakfast with her parents, John Tigerton and May Tigerton. While heading to school after having breakfast, she discovers the body of a 20-year old pig who was killed by a bite to the neck. At the crime scene, she meets and befriends a 33-year old albino snowshoe cat named Cherry, who gains her trust quickly.
Soon, Sam discovers another body, this time a 49-year old pigeon, and the fact that a cave a meter away from her house is a secret base for an unnamed pirate group. When Sam's cover is blown, she is chased by the pirates through the forest. She escapes and hides in a huge tree, where she meets a blind 6-year old tabby-cat pirate named Wilbur.
That night, Sam is haunted by a nightmare (which brings us to the spin-off short film) in which a group of silhouetted angry humans, who desire revenge for the suffering a cult had inflicted on them like it, tie up and torture Sam in very gruesome, brutal ways. The next day, as Cherry takes her home, she gives Sam a scroll recording before leaving.
Sam shows the family the scroll and they watch it, revealing it to be a snuff mixtape film that takes place in the cult that was mentioned in Sam’s nightmare. In the recording, it shows a play that portrays a brave panda that defeated a Gorgon, showing a young (presumably) female panda cub attacking two preteen girls in giant snake forms (who the two use the Snake devil fruit power) in a brutal way, resulting in injuries, while the rest was the cult members brutally torturing slaves, adult, elderly, and children, which results in injuries.
After watching the mixtape, Sam, who quickly goes outside to vomit and then get some fresh air, learns from the people in her home village that recent kidnappings have been happening because of the same cult in her nightmare and scroll recording, and reveal that there was an albino kitten who was part of the cult. She sees Cherry walking to an alleyway and confronts her, who Cherry reveals herself to be a former member of the cult, which is called “The Passion Blooming Cult”.
Cherry explains that the cult doesn’t worship any deity, but they are a group that torture and kill humans, including making snuff films of them torturing the humans, as they thought of it as revenge for the suffering humans inflicted on them before animals have evolved. She also reveals she secretly works for the cult and that the “Gorgon Sisters” legend was fake, revealing that the three sisters are the same pre-teenagers that were involved in the snuff mixtape that she recorded, who the three were not only her slaves, but where forcibly fed devil fruits for the cult’s entertainment.
An additional obstacle in Cherry's plot is the fact that she wants revenge on the humans, not because of the traditional motive of the cult, but because they brutally and gruesomely tortured her and killed her elder sister and their parents when she was a kitten, just because she was a former cult member, and that she killed the two anthro-citizens because they had befriended humans before, which Cherry found them disgusting.
Although Cherry deems Sam an ideal successor, Sam defies Cherry’s vengeful ambition and attempts to destroy a scroll, which contains all the data that Cherry had gathered. The ensuing fight between the two results in the village setting on fire, and the struggle ends when Sam disembowels and injures Cherry and leaves her in the burning premises, from which Sam saves herself and the town citizens.
Cast[]
- Hala Finley as Sam, an anthropomorphic 6-year old bengal kitten girl.
- Tara Strong as May, Sam’s mom.
- Craig Strong as John, Sam’s dad.
- Michelle Creber as Cherry, an albino snowshoe cat.
- Aden Strong as Wilbur, a blind maine coon 6-year old kitten boy and a member of a pirate crew.
Trivia[]
- This is the first Disney and PG-13 animated film to mention the word “Snuff” and show a Snuff film, though little is shown in the scroll recording.