Live Animals (2008) The cover for this indie has a review byte that boasts “fans of Saw and Hostel will cheer”. Well, first it’s nothing at all like Saw. Second, it’s not exactly like Hostel either. At best it’s more like a mix of Turistas and Human Centipede but not as suspenseful or brutal. Not that Live Animals doesn’t show blood. In fact, the victims are abucted by lunatics relatively early and before long a tongue is cut off. It was the guy’s own fault though for not shutting up. The short lead-in to the crisis situation allows little time to get to know the characters, but they seem pretty boring. Their new “owner”–an older, regular looking guy assisted by a husky sidekick–wants to mentally break them like horses so he can sell them like slaves. The surviving college-age kids are able to escape the chains before making a huge, brainless mistake which culminates into otherwise easily avoidable deaths. It all would have been more believable if the mediocre Live Animals didn’t suffer from sloppy editing in a few scenes and the inexplicably deleted–and humorous!–scene that would have answered how the villian makes an escape. [rating: $4] –Kenyon