‘Cryptozoo’ Review: Creative Majesty and the Natural World

Cryptids, often defined as mythical or supernatural creatures that offer no real evidence to their existence, can be seen as testaments to human creativity. While the natural world offers an infinitude of organic diversity, we have always used conceptualism to expand the realm of possibility into larger and stranger fairy-tale territory. That same drive has encouraged us to create larger-than-life representations. Only in dreams can we take a horse and give it wings, unless we churn our dreams into stories. Told in the artistry it seeks to comment upon, Cryptozoo, written and directed by Dash Shaw, is a film that explores that line between the reality and the fantastic.

With the release of Cryptozoo, Shaw has established himself as a premiere indie animated filmmaker. His first feature, My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, made a splash on the scene with its unique patchwork style and watercolor melodrama, but its entirely impressive animation has been critiqued as overwhelming or, ultimately, exhausting to the eye. Cryptozoo, with animation directed by Jane Samborski, is an entirely different effort that tackles broader subject matter, but its artistry is much more refined, fantastic but controlled.

The film’s opening serves as a modern analogue to the Book of Genesis: a man and a woman, Amber (Louisa Krause) and Matthew (Michael Cera), fully nude and surrounded by nature’s bounty. But it’s the 1960s, and rather than hesitating over forbidden fruit, the young counter-culturists waste no time making love under the stars and sharing dreams of a revolution that will bring about a better tomorrow. It’s the same dreamer’s optimism that encourages them to scale a tall chain link fence clearly meant to keep them out, and whatever’s on the other side in. There, they enter a wonderful, dangerous new reality; one where majestic unicorns charge like wild things.

Cryptozoo whisks us away from Amber and Matthew to introduce us to Lauren Grey (Lake Bell), a cryptozoologist adventurer who was inspired by an encounter in her childhood to seek out, secure and protect mythical creatures of all sorts and sizes from around the world. Lauren is locked in an ongoing race against the U.S. military, who seek to capture and weaponize the cryptids she loves. She works for Joan (Grace Zabriskie), a rich heiress who has devoted her life and wealth to building an amusement park-style sanctuary for the beasts, all of whom she believes are endangered by the modern world.

Matters escalate when Joan evinces the location of a particularly powerful cryptid- the Baku, a small, peaceful elephant-like creature that feeds upon dreams. The news is of special importance to Lauren, whose career was born from a drive to rescue and preserve it. It’s implied that, in seeking the Baku, the government fervently seeks to squash the dreams of its own revolutionary youth. 

Despite the political backdrop, Cryptozoo is much more interested in exploring the moral fallibility of the zoo itself. Early on, Lauren is joined in her efforts by Phoebe, a snake-haired Gorgon who lives and hides in the human world, but dreams of cryptid integration and is inspired by the Cryptozoo’s mission statement. Upon actually touring the park, however, with its encaged and merchandised myths, Phoebe begins to question the purpose and a system that, hidden behind good intent, still manages to trap and exploit these larger-than-life forces. 

Cryptozoo explores a lot of ground, from the pitfalls of human nature and capitalism to the influential power of the unreal, and some ideas get lost along the way. Even with a third act that fully delivers the wild spectacle one might expect from its premise, the rest of the film manages a degree of tameness that leaves you wishing they’d cut loose and leave the fantastic beasts out of hiding. Shaw’s dialogue is very straightforward and plain, eschewing poetry for its captivating aesthetic. It’s worth mentioning, too, that there are some especially gruesome and expletive scenes that may upset sensitive viewers, though they don’t come across as exploitative, and remain in service of the plot. All considered, though, Cryptozoo is absolutely worth your time. There’s nothing else like it, and it succeeds in capturing the imagination and leaving you with a bounty of thematic storytelling to dissect. And of course, the art is a movable feast.

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Ishmael Hurst

Ishmael spends his time bouncing from one form of entertainment to another as a kind of extended vacation from his ongoing existential crisis and it’s going very well for him, thank you. Married to the kindest woman in the world, who patiently abides his crippling Star Wars/Star Trek/Dungeons & Dragons triple-threat nerdhood.