Cujo

This movie was pretty good. I saw it on TV last Halloween, and it really set the mood. It's basically about a dog that gets rabies, and a mother and her son are trapped in the middle of nowhere (in their car that broke down, of all things) because the dog is terrorizing them. It's really pretty sad actually, because they show the dog chasing the rabbit into the cave where he gets the rabies, and the dog just seems so sweet and cute. It's pretty scary too, when the boy passes out from the heat in the car and needs water or SOMETHING. It obviously set that kind of situation for movies like Panic Room and Signs. It is really a pretty suspenseful movie with that psychological terror--it would scare the hell out of you if it happened to you.

(57%) With one of the thinnest plots in film history, this still manages to be quite a real good shocker. Most of the action takes place in a broken down car in the countryside during a super hot day as a big dirty, and very angry dog tries to attack and kill a poor young kid and his mother. The attacks themselves are really quite brutal and very well put together as the main characters really do go through hell and back with this rabid pooch. This is one of the better animal attack films that has for some unknown reason been more than a little bit forgotten about. Put this on if your kid wants to watch one of the terrible Beethoven sequels for the 100th time.

I think of Cujo as "realistic horror" because it is something that could really happen. People really do get killed by rabid dogs...this film just exaggerates the truth a bit. I can't say I really enjoyed this film as it is not what I look for in horror films. It's a very good film - well acted, well directed, suspenseful and emotional, but it's not really "fun" to watch. It starts off with the dog getting infected, and from then on tension is built up slowly as you sense the dog is getting angrier and angrier. Eventually it snaps and starts killing people. The bulk of the film focuses on when Donna and her son are trapped in the broken down car because Cujo attacks whenever they try to leave. You can feel all the desperation, pain and isolation of Donna and her son as they lay trapped inside. It makes you think twice about dogs and certainly what you would do in such a situation. Would you run, attack the dog, or wait until help arrives?

This is not a fun, campy or cheesy horror film, so don't watch if you're a fan of cheese. It's for those who want to feel suspense, fear and pain.

'Cujo' is not only one of my favorite 80's horror films, but also one of my favorite Stephen King films.

The film quickly sets up the back story and each character, so when they find themselves in peril, we're familiar with them and therfore root for them. The events leading to the finale is justified and believable.

The film's third act completely sucks you in and never gives you a moment to catch your breath. Clever photography significantly enhances the suspense. The incredibly realistic dog attack scenes are the best I've ever seen before and since 'Cujo'. Young Danny Pintauro is excellent in a dramatic role.

1983 was a bit of a bumper year for cinematic versions of Stephen King novels. In that year alone we had Christine and The Dead Zone as well as Cujo. It would probably not be unfair to say that Cujo is the least good of the three but in all honesty there isn't a great deal in it, with all being pretty effective and nicely varied horror films. Out of those three, and unlike most King horror films in general, Cujo is not a supernatural horror movie and is based on a plausible idea. A woman and her young son become trapped in their broken down car in a remote junkyard when a St. Bernard dog, made rabid by a bite from an infected bat, lays siege to their vehicle in a murderous mood.

This one could be described as a high concept movie given the very basic nature of its set-up. In order to pad things out to feature length and to add some depth, we have quite a bit of character development in the first half of the movie, which focuses mainly on a dysfunctional family and the dramas that surround them. Once the action moves to the junkyard though, most of this is largely forgotten and the film essentially becomes an 'animal-attack' horror-thriller. Dee Wallace does some good work as the mother who has to deal with the trauma while having to comfort her young son, who it has to be said is involved in some pretty intense looking scenes which may have been quite full on for the young actor involved. But the scary scenes were often achieved by very clever editing, after all a St. Bernard is hardly the most threatening of beasts to base a horror movie on. The fast and clever edits do make this creature seem genuinely menacing. Less successful though was the soundtrack which compromised of a considerable amount of really terrible music which would have been better suited to a daytime TV melodrama than a suspenseful and thrilling feature film. But on the whole, this is a pretty decent and lean effort that gets the job done quite effectively.