"The Seattle Times" called it "A tough sell that gets respect at Sundance", also noting the local economic effect of landmark films which put a location "on the map". "OC Weekly" film says, ""Zoo" achieves the seemingly impossible: It tells the luridly reported tale of a Pacific Northwest Boeing engineer's fatal sexual encounter with a horse in a way that's haunting rather than shocking and tender beyond reason." Similar views were expressed by the "Los Angeles Times" ("remarkably, an elegant, eerily lyrical film has resulted") and the "Toronto Star", "gorgeously artful ... one of the most beautifully restrained, formally distinctive and mysterious films of the entire festival".