Les Assiégés

After the cheap 'n' cheerful sci-fi movies of the '50s which sometimes featured mutant animals, the animals-on-the-rampage genre was promoted into an art form when Alfred Hitchcock scared us all half to death with his horrifying "The Birds". In the years that followed, we had killer sharks (Jaws); killer bees (The Swarm); killer whales (Orca); killer ants (Phase IV); killer amphibians (Frogs); and, believe it or not, killer rabbits (Night Of The Lepus). The Pack, released in 1977 with a cast of solid but not-all-that-well-known actors, is the inevitable killer dogs variation of the theme. When I sat down to watch the film, I expected little from it. Surprisingly, the film proved to be very well-made, with lots of excitement and some skillfully edited dog attacks, plus an unexpected injection of humour (sample: R.G Armstrong has a hilarious line, commenting upon the disappearance of an overweight tourist: "if he had any sense, he'd climb a tree. That is if he can get his fat ass off the ground!")

Marine biologist Jerry (Joe Don Baker) has been working on a remote island called Seal Island, where he has begun to build a house for himself, his girlfriend Millie (Hope Alexander-Willis), and their children from previous marriages. Seal Island has a fairly steady summer tourist trade, but once the holiday season is over the only folks left around are its handful of permanent residents. This year, a small party of bankers also stick around after the summer season for a little extra fishing and recreation. Things get awkward for the holiday-makers and the residents when they learn that a pack of dogs - mostly pets abandoned by tourists at the end of the season - are roaming the island. Starving and rabid, the dogs have started to target people as their likeliest possible food source. One by one, the people on Seal Island are hunted by the bloodthirsty canines and torn apart, leading the survivors to barricade themselves inside a building where they attempt to survive until the arrival of the weekly ferry.

Writer-director Robert Clouse (of Enter the Dragon fame) has fashioned a genuinely exciting story here. It's predictably plotted, yes, but Clouse quickly disguises the fact that this is an old, old story by introducing a clutch of refreshingly oddball characters and building an ever-present undercurrent of suspense. Because the cast is relatively unknown, it becomes hard to guess who will live and who will die (more than once characters you don't expect to get killed do just that, while characters who you're sure are about to be devoured unexpectedly survive). The dog attack sequences are very well handled and seem realistic, which adds to the film's excitement (in films like Nightwing, the animal attacks looked too fake, too funny, to be frightening... but not so in The Pack!) If you're searching for a rampaging animal movie that is actually good, then look no further.

I'd really like to have given The Pack a higher rating, but unfortunately; too many little niggles prevented me from doing so. There have been a few films depicting "man's best friend" attacking man, but in general the idea doesn't seem to be capitalised upon too often. The Pack is certainly the only film I've seen about a pack of wild dogs terrorising a group of humans. The film takes place on a small island, which is a positive element in itself as it brings an element of claustrophobia to the nightmare premise. However, in general; Robert Clouse's film just doesn't capitalise on its positive elements, which leaves it all feeling more than a little bit flat. The plot centres on a group of people on Seal Island, whose serene existence is interrupted by a pack of wild dogs. The dogs have come about, apparently, thanks to people going to the pound to buy a dog to take to the island, and then leaving it there. These dogs are, naturally, very hungry; and it's not long before they realise that the island features a plentiful food supply, and unfortunately for the people there - they are it.

The film is at its best when the dogs are on the attack and the director delights in showing them looking rabid and hungry...but unfortunately, they never really look too threatening when they're not tearing into soft-top cars or breaking through windows. Much of the film is really quite boring, and unfortunately there isn't enough in reserve where the characters are concerned to make the film interesting. Veteran actor Joe Don Baker takes the lead role, and does well in providing the offbeat hero as the man doesn't particularly look like someone who you would expect to be fighting off a pack of hungry dogs. The plot hinges a little too much on its set-pieces also, which is unfortunate as there's not much to string them together. It has to be said also that the film is a little too long, and could have done with a tighter editing job. The island location provides a good setting for a film like this, though, and the way that the characters are isolated adds a little extra terror. The ending is strong, and provides a good wrap-up to a sadly merely worthwhile film.

Robert Clouse's "The Pack" is mostly your usual killer pets movie. In this case, people buy dogs at the pound, and leave them on a vacation island. Sure enough, the dogs turn feral and go after the island's inhabitants. While most of the cast does the sorts of things that we expect in one of these movies, Joe Don Baker is quite cool as the leader. But the real stars are definitely the rabid canines. The people behind the camera probably fixed up the main dog so that he would look more menacing; I mean, I've never seen any mutt looking like that.

I notice that this movie was filmed in Bodega Bay, California. Film buffs know that town as the filming location of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". Is every movie filmed there going to feature non-human fauna attacking people?! Another thing - and I may be the only person who thinks of this - is that "The Pack" was released through Warner Bros. When I was really young, I always associated that studio with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc. I wonder: what would I have thought had I known that the studio behind the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons also released horror movies (they also released "The Shining", "The Awakening" and "The Nesting").

But I digress. This movie isn't terrible. Worth seeing maybe once.

The late film director Robert Clouse showed himself to be fairly versatile when it came to his projects. After having already made one bonafide classic with the martial arts actioner "Enter the Dragon" and the similarly fun "Black Belt Jones", he went on to do the futuristic sci-fi saga "The Ultimate Warrior". Here he tackles the "nature strikes back" sub genre with very enjoyable results.

It takes place on a resort island where the year round residents, and some visitors, now have to deal with the problem of a ferocious dog pack that is the result of vacationers having adopted these dogs for the summer and then abandoned them. Yeah, there's a real message in here about mankinds' callousness towards his fellow animals that gives this movie some appreciated (and not overdone) subtext in addition to its thrills.

There's no filler here, just a good, straightforward story (based on a novel by David Fisher) that moves forward at a decent pace. The rural scenery is, not unexpectedly, very nicely photographed and the booming music by Lee Holdridge is perfect accompaniment. The animal action is first rate - the principal trainer is Karl Lewis Miller, an old hand at that kind of thing for many years, and he gets utterly convincing performances from the canine stars, especially the primary antagonist, a mangy mongrel, and the pathetic straggler of the group whom we see abandoned near the beginning of the movie.

The human cast does not fare badly, either, with the ever solid Joe Don Baker, playing a marine biologist (!), as the kind of hero you can root for. (Of course, there are also the standard characters in this thing whom you pretty much *hope* are going to come to a bad end.) Hope Alexander-Willis is his appealing leading lady, and the supporting cast features such reliable performers as Richard B. Shull and R. G. Armstrong.

"The Pack" never gets too graphic, preferring to leave some things to the imagination, but doesn't skimp on the thrills, being genuinely exciting at times, especially in the last half hour. Overall it's more effective than the movie "Dogs" which was also released in that busy period, post-"Jaws", when a number of movies like this were coming out. It's entertaining all the way; that final sequence will just melt your heart.

Clouse returned to animal horror five years later with "The Rats", a.k.a. "Deadly Eyes".

Eight out of 10.

Horror movie about a pack of neglected dogs who go wild and start attacking people on an island. It starts out well enough but kind of drags on and, as a result, loses most of its impact. The movie stars Joe Don Baker and a cast of somewhat familiar faces like R.G. Armstrong and the guy who played Paul on Cheers. What works best is the location filming and the use of real dogs. I know that might sound weird but today everything is CGI fakery so I always find the use of "real" refreshing when watching older movies like this. Anyway, there are no standout scenes and you'll probably forget this a week after you watched it. Worth a look once though.