Dogs of Hell

Dogs of Hell (1983)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The evil U.S. government have created Rottweilers that are trained to attack and kill humans. A truckload of them are going through a small town when the truck crashes and sends the dogs on a killing spree, which has Sheriff Hank Willis (Earl Owensby) having to take control.

This here was the first of six pictures that Owensby would produce in 3D but to my knowledge there has never been a home video of this version. Most copies out there are from the video and are full screen and don't look the greatest so it's hard to judge the effects obviously but at the same time there were very few things that "jumped" at the screen outside an early scene involving a dart.

As far as the rest of the movie goes, it's really no different than films like THE PACK or DOGS. This one here contains a certain regional atmosphere, which is a plus and it's always fun seeing that charm of Owensby but outside of this there's really not too much here to recommend. The biggest problem is that the film has the majority of the attacks off the screen so we get the cheap effect of a dog growling and then the aftermath of the attack.

DOGS OF HELL has a certain low-budget appeal but there's just not enough here to make it interesting enough to recommend. That is unless you're a fan of Owensby.

yup... it's kind of fun to watch "Dogs of Hell" if you like to watch movies that were originally intended to be in 3D and pretend to be wow-ed by the scenes where they intend to shoot, throw, or point things out at you. Originally released as "Rottweiler" in 1982, you can see how the entire movie is relying on the fact that at some point they're gonna throw something towards the camera. As I watched it I thought after the first hour that I'd rented a movie called "Mystery Dog" because you never actually saw what was attacking these 80's act-bots (so amazing how they could manage to have such 2-dimensional actors in a 3D movie). And the dogs you eventually see look like your neighbor's dogs do when the kids tease it...hardly a fright. But it wasn't as though the film were a real disappointment as I hadn't expected much. The highlight of the movie for me was when the sherriff would shoot the dogs with his big ol' 44. You'd see the picture cut away from a snarling rottweiler to a cheap, paper machete casting of a rottweiler's head that would then explode throwing bologna, chocolate milk, stale beer and whatever else they decided would look like dog brains all over the place. Yup. "Dogs of Hell" was a moderately humorous way to neglect quality time and a gem if you're into watching obscure movies that don't diserve to be remembered just because you know they wont be.

Next to approximately three dozen of other horror themes and subgenres, yours truly is also a giant fan of movies with killer dogs. After recently having seen the surprisingly decent 2015 Aussie effort "The Pack", my interest to seek out some older canine flicks got re-sparked, but then you are instantly confronted with the large number of truly bad titles that exist here. The early and mid-70s still spawned a few cool movies, like "Trapped" (1973), "Dogs" (1976) and "The Pack" (1977), but the 1980s excelled in horrible killer dog movies! The list is quite long already ("Mongrel", "Play Dead", "Monster Dog", "Humongous") and "Rottweiler" (a.k.a. "Dogs of Hell") may be added to it as well. Like with the others, the best thing about this film is the poster image, and everything else is beyond bad. The script is weak, the lead characters don't have any charisma, the acting performances are miserable, the few potentially exciting dog-attack sequences are poorly lit and fuzzy, and the whole thing is stuffed with irrelevant and downright dumb footage (like for example mud-wrestling contests and bar fights). US Military scientist Fletcher was assigned to train a pack of Rottweilers into becoming powerful army weapons, but at the beginning of the film we witness him begging to his superiors to abandon the entire project because the animals lost all their emotional capacities and developed a hatred against humans. The military top refuses, naturally, and the dogs escape during transportation. Apart from unstoppable fighting machines, these nasty puppies are apparently also Houdinis, since they manage to escape from a truck that immediately explodes after a collision. Now they are at large in a sort of mountain spa resort community, with only a lousy Sheriff and a couple of rednecks with guns as their opponents. I understand from the other reviews that lead actor/producer Earl Owensby enjoys some kind of cult reputation, but I certainly cannot guess where that comes from. His performance as the Sheriff is the worst of all (hardly could understand a word he was saying) and he also didn't bother to liberate any budget for the action scenes. Isn't that what producers are supposed to do? There are a few idiotic and senseless plot twists, like the devoted scientist suddenly turning into a madman, and far too many sentimental dialogues/monologues coming from people literally nobody cares about.

So, weren't there any good killer dog movies in the 80s then? Well, the adaptation of Stephen King's novel "Cujo" is enjoyable, but also certainly not a masterpiece. The only truly brilliant film that I would recommend in this genre is Samuel Fuller's "White Dog" (1982).

DOGS OF HELL is about a top secret military project involving the killer canines of the title. These ruthless Rottweilers have surgical implants, making them ferocious fuzzballs of doom.

Oh no!

They're accidentally unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace!

Starring intergalactic omni-star, Earl Owensby as Sheriff Hank Willis, this is another low-low-budget schlocker from the 1980's. As such, it must hold some sort of record, considering that every character in it is an annoying idiot. Ranging from squeaky dweebs, to yowling yahoos, the denizens of the fictional town are all equally insufferable!

Thankfully, many of them end up as dog chow.

Of particular interest are the "wilderness photoshoot gone awry" and the obligatory "mud wrestling" sequences.

Ludicrous to the extreme, this could / should have been a masterwork of slack-jawed insanity. Unfortunately, it loses points for its long stretches of trance-inducing dullness. To be fair, it's almost saved by the southern-fried, musical soundtrack, bringing to mind a sort of Lynyrd Skynyrd / Hee Haw hybrid.

The perfect movie for de-wrinkling one's brain...

This film must be seen in the original widescreen 3-D process; as the excellent use of stereoscopic space is its only virtue. If you like cheesy horror flicks, you'll likely appreciate it a bit more. Earl is no actor, but he's fun in this silly little movie.

After seeing COMIN' AT YA! rake in the cash in 1981, Earl got the idea (as did many a producer at the time) that 3-D would bring attention to his low budget southern flicks and decided to shoot everything that way! This was the first of SIX 3-D movies made by Earl Owensby in the 1980's. The others were TALES OF THE THIRD DIMENSION, CHAIN GANG, HIT THE ROAD RUNNING, HYPERSPACE, and HOT HEIR (aka GREAT BALLOON CHASE).