Cujo

Hardcore horror fans won't be disappointed (although for a while they may think they will be) with this extremely bloody and gruesome shocker. The attack scenes are about as intense as possible - the director almost pushes them TOO far. But the first half of the movie is plodding, filled with unnecessary scenes, and the kid's constant whining (although justified) is sure to get on your nerves. (**1/2)

A St. Bernard dog is playfully chasing a rabbit, but when the dog decides to pop its head into a burrow it's bitten by a rabies-infected bat and slowly over time it becomes a maliciously uncontrolled mutt. Which, it turns on its owner and also terrorises that of a unfaithful women and her son that came to get their vehicle repaired, but only to be trapped in their broken down car with rabid dog outside trying to get to them.

Beethoven… yep, I just couldn't stop thinking of the lovable Beethoven when watching this flick. That was one of my childhood favourites, but I guess it isn't going to be quite the same when I come across it again. I won't look a Beethoven the same way again. Anyhow, this is one of the King's better-made adaptations. Although, it's a long way from brilliant, it delivers a stable amount of interest and tension to proceedings. This was my second viewing of it and it has hardly lost any of that full-blooded impact it generated, especially the heart racing standoff between the dog and the trapped victims. I wouldn't be surprise that you don't think your watching a horror film to begin with, as the opening basis centres around a family melodrama, raising martial issues and work commitments. It kind of comes across as cheesy in its supposed sentiment in those moments.

Then it kicks into gear with the slow beginning making way for a crackerjack final 40 minutes of simple confined tension built around isolation. It also doesn't hold back on the vicious dog attacks with ample ferocity and raw suspense being belted out. Watching people being mauled apart by this giant scuffed up dog wasn't that pleasant at all. The gore effects were more than adequate and it looked the part of a rabid dog perfectly. But you couldn't help but feel sorry for the dog, as it's more of a victim then the people who he's terrorising. Honestly I cared more for the misunderstood pooch than the initial victims. The characters weren't entirely likable, with the exception of one or two, but I didn't connect with them in this mess. The story is simple and plays it straight, but that doesn't mean it avoids the familiar clichés. Although, it doesn't entirely hurt the film, well it kind of enhances it actually. A surprising factor I found was that the film's camera-work was well choreographed with plenty of swirling shots and when it needed to up the ante it became rather erratic to fit in with the mood. Also add in some glorious slow-mo. The score on the other hand I thought was forcefully unbalanced and didn't fit into the mood at times. The performances are all sturdy and very hard to knock. Dee Wallace-Stone was at the top of her game as the wayward wife and Danny Pintauro as her worried son was equally so. Daniel Hugh Kelly gives a likable performance as the father and of course the endearing dog is worth a mention too. The strong performances make this traumatic experience even more believable.

A tautly constructed and work-man like film that won't push the boundaries, but its intensely petrifying in its simple origins.

(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.

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.

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.