Les chiens fous

Southern California in the mid 1970's. Domesticated dogs are forming packs and start attacking farm animals, then humans, This may or may not be down to the presence of a nearby top secret Government linear accelerator (I didn't even try to figure what this was but I guess it makes a change to the good old atomic research stations). The plot is similar to that classic "The Birds" (1963), and one of the standout scenes (there aren't many) has Linda Gray take a shower but instead of Psycho's Norman Bates we get a vicious dog. Sadly Gray only appears for about 5 minutes throughout the movie, I would like to have seen more of her. Brit David McCallum gives by far the best performance, to be honest most of the cast are not very good, one or two exceptions. Real dogs are used and in fairness they are made to look fanged and vicious, there is a fair amount of gore (mainly after shots of victims), sadly the movie looks rather cheap and gets bogged down by some poor dialogue and slow scenes. I have seen much better made for TV movies from this period. The ending hints at a sequel, but with cats, this never materialised, maybe for the better.

Dogs ain't a half bad made flick, about a potpourri of dogs, who meet up and go on a killing spree, killing anything animal or human. What is doing it? That's the million dollar question. It leads us to question our our species, as if becoming part of a gang, where we become brainwashed, and commit things we normally wouldn't do, if graduating to murder. But in this open ended, and not too optimistic film, that's pretty gruesome, near it's finale, it's M rating pushing it, we don't find out. Bugger. David McCallum lends a fine performance as the smart hunky professor of Scientology, the real smartie, determined to get to the bottom of the killings, those cattle mutilations early on, aren't for sheep lovers. The violence in Dogs in pretty raw and frank. A younger Linda Gray co-stars before her Dallas days, as Wyner's performance as the new Scientist was strong, and actually likable in a sense. Suspense runs high, some of it electric near the end, and is well executed, the opening music score with our favorite pooches in slo mo, all banding together, my favorite part. They're are some unintentionally funny moments, whether dialogue or acting, but they made 70's movies what they were. This is a well made film, badly dated "Yes", but bad, "No". Warning: Are some scenes are dog murder.

a true story.

at 13 & 10, my younger brother and i, who had a large 2 yr old neighborhood Shepperd (turk), went to see this movie and were unaware of the terror this film evoked until coming home from the theater that night. being a neighborhood dog, turk was roaming in the night alley as we walked by.

recognizing us, of course, with his reflective eyes, the dog advanced toward us. if you can imagine two boys being chased by their own dog down the street screaming murder, in sheer terror. we were banging on the door for help. the dog thought we were playing and joined in and further excited our fears.

over 20 yrs later my brother and i tell that story with fond memories of the era the dog and the movie.

having grown up in the horror hay-day of the 70s and having, arguably, seen the best and worst that Hollywood has to offer. psychologically, this film teems with possibilities for a remake. without all that computer generated junk.

I love such kind of movies with killer animals. But if i have to be honest, most are mediocre to bad (acting, cinematography, script and so on). They of course are low budget, so they have their excuse, and they are usually from new (at that time) directors.

Anyway, this movie turned out to be quite nice. Maybe because i had lower expectations, but it exceeded them. The first part of the movie is kinda slow, but it builds up nicely after that. Acting wasn't terrible, camera work wasn't terrible, and they use real dogs which is typical for most of the movies with dogs from that time. My biggest enjoyment was that the science talk was quite accurate, not random stupid BS i hear in many movies, that sometimes is so stupid it must be written by a 1st grader.

There were quite some dogs in this movie, all kinds of breeds. Tho it would have been scarier if there were few angry mad chihuahua dogs because they are vicious for their tiny size. Or a slow pug that is trying to be scary but too chubby and clumsy and slow to do any harm.

Over. Decent chill evening movie. I'd say between 4 and 5, giving some extra because it was better than i expected, and because of the decent science talk ( i took like 2 points out from the giant mantis for the stupidest science dialogues ive ever heard)

Dogs (1976)

** (out of 4)

A small community is investigating some bizarre deaths and one man (David McCallum) thinks that it's a pack of dogs. These aren't wild dogs however. No, it is believed that these are a group of pets who have gone crazy for some reason and are now attacking humans.

In case you couldn't tell, this is yet another film in the "when nature attacks" genre, which took off after the success of JAWS. That film had a killer shark and overtime we'd have movies with killer bees, whales, grizzly bears, rats, rabbits and various other animals. DOGS isn't the best of the bunch but it's certainly not the worst of the bunch so you're entertainment level will certainly depend on your feelings towards the genre.

I've always enjoyed the genre so I can overlook some of the flaws that a film like DOGS has. The biggest problem with the film is the fact that it really doesn't rise above a made-for-TV level. Another problem is that the dogs aren't ever scary and there's certainly no tension to be had in any of the scenes. The highlight of the movie happens when four hunters are surrounded by the dogs during the night but this film should have been milked for some suspense.

McCallum is pretty bland in the lead role and no one here jumps off the screen, although fans of Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES will enjoy seeing Russ Grieve here in a small part. I will say that the film is rather violent at times and included one really graphic sequence. I'd also argue that the ending isn't exactly what you'd expect. DOGS should have been better but as it is the film manages to be slightly entertaining.