Dead Pet

Jake Thompson returns home for summer to find out that his parents have spent his college trust fund on the family pet poodle Miko. I did not know a family could generate a college fund-enough to educate a child at Harvard-from collecting old cans.

How Jake could get into Harvard one will never know. How Jake attracts two women while swilling beer in a kiddie pool is more unfathomable.

But all of this is okay because Jake lives in an alternate reality not accessible without ingesting heavy amounts of narcotics.

Take this movie as a random melange of vignettes, all unrelated to one another and the movies captures amusing oddities of american trailer park charaters-I especially liked the knife loving Shears'-and equally clueless suburbirats.

Overall this movie is better than no movie, but almost any other would be better.

Not fantastic, but definitely entertaining. This film was hilarious. Some may be turned off by the indie quality of the film, acting, and sets, but overall it is a ridiculously bizarre situation that the main character is in and you can't help but laugh at it. I picked this film up on a whim while at the video store and was pleasantly surprised. If you like black comedies (Rushmore, Fargo) then I would totally check this out.

I'm a fan of "Savage" Steve Holland's "Better Off Dead" and this film is similar not because of plot, but instead for the assortment of humorous and bizarre characters and groups assembled. Some of these include "cultist" cutlery salesfolks, parents who care more about their dog than their son and activists demanding justice for a dead animal. Also, just as in BOD, the protagonist comes across as a "normal" guy who is stunned and confused by the antics of those in his life.

With a larger budget, some minor re-tooling of the script and a cast of professional actors, I could see the film having quite a bit of success in wider release.

I always have to give credit to anyone who actually makes a film, especially a small indy film. There is an intro to the film on the DVD where the writer/lead actor comes on and speaks briefly only to be interrupted by the producer, who goes on to say how he put thousands of dollars on his credit cards to produce the film. Well, that's the way you have to do it sometimes, but this was an abysmal first attempt. The truth is, the writer wrote a screenplay that has no meat. It's a boring premise, and I wonder what he was thinking as he was writing it. I can't believe he chuckled as he wrote down the dialogue or scenes. It reeks of a bad high school play. The WORST part is the acting. Everyone, including the guy who wrote it, act like they are in an appliance commercial. I'm waiting for anyone to scream, "I'll knock 20% off that Trinitron!" Another words, subtlety never enters the picture, with all the actors going way over the top. The only reason I kept watching was because of an actress named Gina Doctor. She has amazing screen appeal, and her acting may go further. By the way, I picked up this DVD in the bargain bin at a video store that was going out of business and thought that the cover looked interesting. It is; however, it's misleading. That scene lasted about 3 seconds and had nothing to do with the rest of the film. The writer of this film should take some more writing classes and perhaps stay out of the way of the lens.

Obviously "Dead Pet" was produced with an ultra-low budget, but that never seems to get in the way. When Harvard student Jake Thompson returns home for the summer, his life begins to rapidly spiral out of control, beginning with his parents forgetting his birthday and to pick him up at the airport. From there things get worse as the family dog has gobbled up the remainder of his college money on a series of expensive operations. When the mutt turns up dead, Jake is accused of doing in the pooch. A series of hilarious headlines in the local paper chronicles Jake's downward plunge. Selling Matador quality cutlery to support himself, provides a great spoof of the in-home sales industry."Remember the phone is your lifeline". This little gem has a lot of heart, and a message not to let other people drag you down. Truly a winner. - MERK