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Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
If you are looking for something to watch while eating cereal on a Saturday morning, this might be it. It is short, grainy, and very loud in spirit even if the sound is old.
History nerds will probably get a kick out of it. People who want 4K nature shots of lions will absolutely hate this.
The whole thing feels like someone found a box of old film in a basement and just decided to play it. There is something about the way the buffalo move that feels different than modern TV.
It is all chaos and dust. You can barely see the animals half the time because the camera is bouncing around so much.
Wynant D. Hubbard is the guy in charge here. He seems like the kind of person who didn't mind getting his boots dirty or his camera smashed.
There is a moment where the stampede starts and the screen just turns into a gray blur. I actually leaned closer to my monitor to see if I was missing something, but no, it is just dust.
It is weirdly intense for a movie that is almost a hundred years old. You can feel the heat coming off the screen.
The movie mentions the tsetse fly like it is some kind of super villain. I know they are dangerous in real life, but the way the film talks about them is so dramatic.
It stops being an adventure and starts being a weird science lesson for a minute. The transition is clunky as heck.
I found myself wondering if the cameraman was actually safe. Probably not, considering how they filmed things back then.
It reminded me a bit of the rougher parts of The Squaw Man but without the acting. Just raw, messy footage of the outdoors.
The buffalo look massive and mean. One of them stares at the lens for a second and it actually feels a bit creepy.
There isn't really a story here. It is just: here are some buffalo, now look out for the flies.
I liked the lack of polish. Everything today is so smooth and fake, so seeing something this ugly was refreshing.
The editing is pretty jumpy. One second you are in a field, the next you are looking at a close-up of a bug that looks like a smudge.
It’s not quite as dramatic as The Eleventh Hour, but it has that same old-world energy. Like everyone involved was just making it up as they went along.
I think I saw a guy in the background trip during the stampede. I had to rewind it twice to be sure, but yeah, he definitely stumbled.
That is the kind of stuff you don't see in movies anymore. Real mistakes staying in the final cut.
It makes the whole thing feel more like a home movie than a "documentary." Which I guess is why I didn't turn it off.
The tsetse fly segment goes on a bit too long. We get it, the fly is bad news.
I started looking at the trees in the background instead of the bug. They look so still compared to the stampede earlier.
It is a strange little artifact. Not a masterpiece, but it doesn't try to be one.
It just wants to show you some big animals running away from a loud car. And honestly? That is enough for a Tuesday afternoon.
If you have ten minutes to kill and like looking at old stuff, give it a go. Just don't expect to learn anything useful about buffalo.
It’s definitely better than watching some of the silent stuff from that era like The Dust of Egypt. At least things are actually happening here.
Is it educational? Maybe? In a "don't get stepped on" kind of way.
The ending just sort of happens. It doesn't wrap up or say goodbye, it just stops.
I sat there for a second wondering if there was more. But no, that's the whole stampede.
It’s worth a look if you’re bored. But don't go out of your way to find a high-quality version, because I don't think one exists.
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