Available on DVD: “The Elephant in the Living Room”

After watching Michael Webber’s alarming documentary The Elephant in the Living Room, you would be forgiven for believing that the State of Ohio is just one enormous, unfenced zoo.

Focusing on the misguided and often unregulated American subculture of exotic-pet lovers, Webber pulls examples from several states — including a reptile expo in Pennsylvania and a python hunter in Florida — but his raw meat is in Ohio. There he finds Tim Harrison, a softhearted police officer and animal-rescue expert whose concern for the welfare of these deadly houseguests is equal to his fears for their owners — and, one hopes, their neighbors.

"I don’t have any happy endings," he says ruefully, chilling us with tales of on-the-lam cougars, pythons, alligators and Gaboon vipers. As if to prove his point, the film spends rather too much time in the troubling company of Terry Brumfield, a barely mobile invalid who houses two full-grown African lions and their four cubs in a trailer in his backyard. Lengthy scenes of Brumfield gazing at his fanged charges and nuzzling their necks, accompanied by a selection of emo tunes on the soundtrack, advertise the inevitable tragedy with more sentiment than subtlety.

Fair to a fault, Elephant omits what could be considered crucial voices — like lawmakers, the Humane Society of the United States (which helped finance the film) and mental-health professionals — in its attempt to understand those who believe their particular beast is as harmless as a kitten. At least until it rips someone’s face off.