Cryptozoo is an adult animated fantasy drama film written and directed by Dash Shaw. It features a voice cast that includes Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Zoe Kazan, and Peter Stormare.
It is set in a world where fantastical creatures known as cryptids exist and focuses on Lauren Gray (Bell), a woman who is dedicated to freeing cryptids from traffickers and has plans to build a sanctuary for them known as Cryptozoo. When word spreads of a Baku roaming around, Lauren recognizes it as the creature who absorbed her bad dreams when she was young and decides to look for it before traffickers capture it.
It premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 29, 2021 and was later given a theatrical release on August 20 that same year.
Tropes:
- Baku: It serves as the central cryptid in the film who the main characters are searching for. It ate the bad dreams of Lauren when she was young and would do the same to Nicholas’ dreams of using cryptids as weapons of war towards the end.
- Bittersweet Ending: Lauren’s dream of an animal sanctuary through Cryptozoo is destroyed, but all of the cryptids are now free and able to live in peace away from humanity.
- Chekhov's Gun: In the prologue, Amber kills the unicorn that murdered her boyfriend and takes its horn. She then uses it in the climax to break open the glass so that the light-based cryptids can lead the other creatures to freedom.
- Dead Star Walking: Michael Cera is given second billing in the casting credits, giving the impression that he voices one of the main characters of the film. Matthew, his character, is introduced in the opening of the film, but gets killed before the prologue ends.
- Deranged Animation: There’s already an unusual animation style that’s consistent throughout the film in its designs for both humans and cryptids. It only gets weirder during certain moments such as the Baku eating the dreams of others.
- Escaped Animal Rampage: A more fantastical variant with the cryptids occurs in the climax when the central characters find themselves in Cryptozoo and several of the cryptids have escaped the area and are attacking people outside of it.
- Fan Disservice: Amber spends almost all of her screentime naked, and most of that covered in blood.
- Fantastic Nature Reserve: What the titular Cryptozoo is intended to function as according to Lauren, regardless of the presence of tourist-friendly aspects such as shops and issues with keeping the cryptids in captivity.
- Fauns and Satyrs: Gustav is a faun who is introduced leading Lauren to a cryptid before revealing himself to be working for traffickers, including the main villain who wants the baku.
- The Great Serpent: One of the cryptids is a giant snake that appears when the main characters crash land in the Cryptozoo and later attacks its tower.
- Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: The film has plenty of cryptids whether central to the plot or as background characters ranging from humanoid creatures to highly unusual beasts.
- Pegasus: One appears to help Amber out of trouble and later helps Lauren get to the crumbling tower in Cryptozoo.
- Redemption Equals Death: After spending most of the film being a hindrance to Lauren, Gustav spends his last moments fighting Nicholas so that Lauren can use the pegasus to get to the tower before Gustav is shot to death.
- Taken for Granite: Befitting a gorgon, Phoebe is able to turn people into stone with her eyes. The antagonists get around it by blindfolding her.
