Word: killer
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...primitive (a pitchfork) to the apocalyptic (an A bomb). The acting is only horror-film-functional, and you might wish that our trio of renegades knew a few basic laws of the genre - don't go anywhere alone, and please leave your vehicle before it's sent into the killer car wash - but you have to give Eisner points for knowing where all the bodies are buried, and how to unearth them suddenly for maximum effect. (Read an interview with The Crazies director Breck Eisner...
...pacing big cats to the compulsive back-and-forth swimming of Gus, the famously neurotic polar bear in New York's Central Park Zoo - illustrate the psychologists' point. Trying to improve conditions is hard enough with small to midsize animals like cheetahs and lions; with a leviathan like a killer whale, whose enclosure can only get so big, it's nearly impossible. (See a 2006 story about a killer-whale attack in San Diego...
Something about SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau's ponytail may have triggered the attack. That's what an official at the Orlando marine park told reporters the day after the 16-year veteran at SeaWorld was killed by Tilikum, a 12,000-lb. (5,500 kg) killer whale. On Feb. 24, in the middle of an otherwise routine show, the 40-year-old trainer was standing at the edge of a tank when the 29-year-old animal leaped from the water, grabbed her by the ponytail and began thrashing her about. As horrified visitors watched both from around the tank...
Tilikum is not a first-time offender. In 1991 - eight years after he was captured off the coast of Iceland - he and two other killer whales drowned a trainer during a performance at Sealand of the Pacific in Vancouver. In 1999, a man who trespassed in SeaWorld after hours and apparently jumped in the whale tank was found dead the next morning, lying across Tilikum's back. Is the big whale a bad seed? At least one marine-mammal expert thinks that yes, that's at least part of the answer...
...course, plenty of killer whales live in captivity and never do anything like what Tilikum has done. What was it about this particular whale's experiences or environment at SeaWorld that led to the swish of a ponytail sparking such violence...