It sounds like a lost Disney animated movie. A mother, Madelaine, and her children fly to Tanzania to visit her husband, Hank, a wildlife preservationist.

Hank is called away on an emergency and Madelaine and the kids arrive at his house only to find Hank’s been sharing it with a menagerie of wild animals: giraffes, tigers and roughly 100 lions.

The family has to learn how to get along with all the animals, learning valuable lessons in the process about the importance of wildlife conservation.

What fun!

And it would be, except it wasn’t animated, the lions weren’t trained and the actors running for their lives are actually running for their lives.

The film “Roar” was directed by Noel Marshall (who, among other things, was a producer on “The Exorcist”) over several years.

Marshall, with his wife, Tippi Hedren, and step-daughter Melanie Griffith, along with other family members and a rotating series of crew members spent the better part of a decade filming “Roar” on Marshall’s California ranch through the 1970s, which he stocked with rescued lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes and cheetahs, among other animals.

In its theatrical re-release this year by Drafthouse Films, “Roar” is billed as the most dangerous movie ever made.

The poster proudly proclaims that “no animals were harmed in the making of this film.”

It continues: 70 cast and crew members were.

None of these injuries were planned as part of the plot.

All were on-set accidents,

many of which you watch happen on the screen.

Some are relatively minor: small scratches and scrapes.

Others are severe.

Melanie Griffith had to have facial reconstructive surgery, while Marshall’s multiple puncture wounds eventually led to gangrene.

Cinematographer Jan de Bont was scalped by a lion, requiring 220 stitches to keep his scalp attached to his head.

Then he came back to the set and kept filming.

(De Bont went on to direct ’90s action movies “Speed” and “Twister.” One can only imagine his response to any actor who complained that a stunt was too dangerous.)

Knowing the history of it makes the film into a unique experience.

There’s a fine line between horror and comedy — just listen to the nervous laughter in the theater next time you catch a scary movie — and “Roar” walks that line for most of its 102-minute running time.

Like “Halloween” or “House of the Devil,” there’s a constant tension throughout the film as you wait for the next attack.

While the actors try to deliver lines and tell a story — hunters are trying to kill wild lions, the family is trying to protect them and also survive — you’re just waiting for the next lion attack.

Marshall, in the middle of delivering a line of dialogue, is speared by a lion mid-line.

Lions chase after a motorcycle rider, clawing at his legs.

The fear you see in people’s eyes as they run from the giant mouths full of teeth coming at them is real and actual. So is the surprise and horror when they’re nabbed by a tiger.

In other scenes, the film is almost whimsical: a young lion plays with a skateboard on a porch; two characters talk in the front seat of a Jeep while the back seat is filled with tigers; big cats and humans hug each other; a lion interrupts a meal by climbing on the dinner table.

And after you get over seeing the first few people mauled, parts of it even become funny, much in the same way we laugh at videos of skateboarding fails or people accidentally walking through sliding porch doors.

Movie critics have had a field day trying to top each other with reviews, with the best one being Hitfix’s Drew McWeeny, who opens his review with “‘Roar’ feels like Walt Disney decided to make a snuff version of ‘Swiss Family Robinson.’”

The film is currently on a theatrical tour of the United States, though mostly on the West Coast and the northeast U.S.

But it’s also available on DVD, Blu-Ray and On Demand later this summer.

See it.

In a film landscape littered with copies, sequels, do-overs and remakes, “Roar” stands by itself.

There is no film like it — given the insanity of the premise, it probably shouldn’t exist to begin with — and, barring another family devoting years of their life to running from lions and tigers on film, there never will be again.

Stuart Taylor is a reporter with The Valdosta Daily Times.