Doghouse

This movie was actually pretty good, its kind of jumpy, has good FX and has a lot of funny moments.

Here's a little summary about the story:

Some friends want to take a buddy of theirs out for a trip to help him get over a divorce and to show him that not all women are all alike. Once they arrive at an isolated town, they find that all the women are man-eating cannibals and fight for their lives. Its kind of ironic because in our world today, I think that's what most women are. Crazy, greedy, man-eating life forms that you just can't get enough of.

Its in 2nd place next to Shaun of the Dead, well worth a watch!

"Doghouse" is a very silly British zombie movie in which the small town of Moodley is overrun by female zombies. They attack nine guys who all traveled there by bus to have a guys only retreat of boozing and partying. The zombie women came in all shapes and sizes, yet they were all singular in their goal. Kill all men.

DOGHOUSE is a British stab at the comedy horror genre, featuring a group of guys who go off on holiday to a remote woodland locale and find themselves at the mercy of some zombie-type creatures. It's a film that's more than happy to reveal its inspirations, which here seem to be the likes of horror classics such as THE EVIL DEAD as well as more recent fare like SEVERANCE, which also starred Danny Dyer.

As such, the story is entirely predictable and almost everything that happens has been done before, and probably better. Despite that, it's quite a watchable film, filled to the brim with lots of humour - a lot of it sexist, it has to be said - and gore effects which keep it bubbling along. It's surprisingly entertaining given the pedigree of director Jake West, who has made some real tosh over the years (I'm thinking of EVIL ALIENS in particular).

The cast is littered with familiar faces and more than a few decent actors (Stephen Graham, Noel Clarke) and Dyer plays one of those laid-back, likable lead characters that he always seems to adopt. The special effects and various action scenes are all well-handled, although it has to be said that the actresses playing the various Zombirds are all terribly, embarrassingly over the top (particularly Emily Booth). Still, this is unashamedly adult in tone, which is a plus, and it's a masterpiece in comparison to the execrable LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS!

I was at the first screening of Doghouse in the West End last night, attended by the director Jake West and stars Danny Dyer and Noel Clarke.

Anyone going along to this and expecting anything other than what they know they are going to get are going to be disappointed. This is a laddish Brit-com-horror. In fact its not actually horrific at all as everything is done for laughs. There is no real sense of dread as the whole idea of the film is to maximise the gruesome bits but you know that ten seconds after seeing a bit of goo, someone's going to make a classic one-liner. There are so many gags that not all of them hit the spot, but some are very funny but not all very PC (it is laddish!).

Comparing the original trailer to the film I just saw, I can't help but think that the original film's darker nature has been pretty much exorcised to beef up the humour. The new trailer would also seem to justify the audience the film-makers are targeting.

That said, I came out of the film remembering how I used to go to the cinema as a teenager because going to the cinema was a fun thing to do with mates. Nowadays I so rarely go to the cinema that I don't want to just go and see anything, it has to be something special.

With Doghouse, it really is sit down disengage your brain for 90 minutes, forget about the worries of the world and have a laugh, and then another and another. Don't worry about the plot too much (I don't think the writers did!) and just chill out for an hour and a half.

If you just want a film that is a bit of fun and you just want to be entertained for your entrance fee then this is a film to see. It is no classic and doesn't aim to be, in fact it probably has more in common with the classic "Carry on" series of films than anything else I can think to compare it to. Everyone probably had a ball making it.

After its cinema release it will be a great Friday night film with a few mates, a few beers and the obligatory curry.

Great soundtrack too.

After travelling to a remote village for a weekend of drunken debauchery and male bonding, a group of friends come under attack from the women of the village, who have turned into bloodthirsty cannibals as the result of a top-secret biological warfare experiment carried out by the army.

Those looking for a stylish slice of quirky Brit comedy/horror in the vein of Shaun of the Dead, be warned: Jake West's Doghouse is aimed squarely at the lad-mag reading, post-footy, post-pub, post-curry crowd, and as such, the level of sophistication is not exactly high. Don't expect clever word-play, irony, post-modernism, surrealism, or satire; do expect tit jokes, loads of swearing, mindless violence, and puerile gags about shagging zombies, all of which could have been tons of fun, if only the film's characters hadn't been such an unlikable bunch of 'blokes' (fully deserving of everything they get), and director Jake West hadn't forgotten to develop his plot beyond a repetitive string of silly chase scenes and gory battles.

Although Doghouse is far from the worst British film in recent years to attempt combining laughs with scares (that honour goes to the abysmal Lesbian Vampire Killers, closely followed by The Cottage), I really was expecting a lot more from the director of zany splatterfest Evil Aliens, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The basic premise—a blood-drenched battle of the sexes—is an interesting variation on the standard zombie plot, the design and execution of the female creatures is impressive (each has its own distinctive look and personality), and the gore is well executed; but with the comedy being so moronic, the narrative rapidly going nowhere, and not one sympathetic person to root for, Doghouse is definitely something of a disappointment.