ZOO
dir. Robinson Devor, 2007
United States. 80 min.
In English.

Part of BEST OF SPECTACLE 2025

MONDAY, JANUARY 1 - 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 - 10 PM (Q&A w/ writer Charles Mudede, moderated by Steve Macfarlane)
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14 - 10 PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 23 - 7:30 PM

In 2005, Kenneth Pinyan, a Boeing engineer in Enumclaw, WA died after suffering injuries from – yes – being penetrated by a horse. After his body was dropped off anonymously at the nearby hospital, the authorities retraced his network of connections to uncover a group (some would even say a community) of Seattle-area men who used the Internet to organize meetups involving farm animals; they called themselves “zoos”, short for zoophiles. The eyebrow-raising story led Washington lawmakers to make bestiality a felony; nobody followed it closer than The Stranger contributor Mudede, who kept on the case throughout 2006 (and beyond), resulting in his groundbreaking journalistic essay The Animal In You.

In telling the movie version of this story, Mudede and Devor sought to meet the subject matter with requisite seriousness. Their attempts to engage Pinyan’s real-life zoophile community were mostly unsuccessful, but three audio interviews with zoos identified only by their online monikers (Pinyan’s was “Mr. Hands”, which is the only way he is referred to in ZOO) form the backbone for the film’s impressionistic reenactment sequences. The filmmakers’ disinterest in true-crime salaciousness is obvious; ZOO demonstrates their shared refusal to sacrifice aesthetic style for ripped-from-the-headlines urgency. As years go by, it’s not hard to understand why ZOO was hotly discussed after its premiere at the 2007 Sundance International Film Festival, nor why it has been largely on the margins since. ZOO is a docufiction hybrid (from before the term became a total cliche) that refuses to compromise: Devor and Mudede take things way beyond the facile punchline of the film’s inciting news story, opting instead to receive their interviewees as human beings, warts and all, resulting in a haunting (and gnarly!) viewing experience.