Deadly Dogs vol. 3

Deadly Dogs 3
by Goat Scrote

     Another offering for rabid fans of killer dog movies...

Cujo (1983)

Mainly a ripoff of: The book "Cujo" by Stephen King.

The Dog(s):  Just about everyone has heard of Cujo, right? Karl Lewis Miller was the animal trainer for Daddy, the main dog who portrayed Cujo. Daddy developed a case of bloat and died during production. Trainer Miller also worked on "The Pack" (1977).

     Summary: Directed by Lewis "Alligator" Teague. A loveable Saint Bernard contracts rabies, becomes a ferocious, slobbering killer, and holds captive Donna (Dee Wallace Stone) and kindergarten-age Tad (Danny Pintauro) in their disabled Ford Pinto. Those cars really are deathtraps! This premise seems pretty limited as the basis for an entire horror movie but it does have some grisly moments of terror. Cujo's mental and physical degeneration is horrifying to watch.
     Best Scene: Cujo’s first leap at the window of the car always makes me jump, and when he uses his body as a battering ram it's pretty intense, but the scariest moment for me is when Cujo sneaks up behind Donna and actually manages to get into the car. Oooooh shit!

Dishonorable Mention:  A major change to the end of the story robs it of its most painful, gut-punching twist. The revision was made with Stephen King’s approval, but I say screw happy endings.

Recommendation: At its best moments it's really scary, and the depiction of ordinary people under extreme stress is pretty realistic. On the other hand, the non-stop shrill screaming gets on my nerves after a while. If you like killer dog flicks at all you pretty much have to see Cujo. The movie is one of the most intense examples of the sub-genre. It’s also the most accessible pop culture reference when speaking with mundanes. Cujo isn’t just a killer dog, he is the killer dog.




Zoltan... Hound of Dracula (1978, aka Dracula’s Dog)



Mainly a ripoff of: The Hammer films Dracula sequels.

The Dog(s): Once an ordinary dog, Zoltan was bitten by a vampire bat long ago and became an immortal bloodsucking slave of Count Dracula.

Summary: Some Soviets crack open the crypt where Dracula’s dog rests and stupidly pull the stake out. Bad move. Zoltan runs around feeding on other dogs to create a pack of vampiric canines, along with Dracula's vampire servant (Reggie Nalder). The dog feeds from the jugular exactly like Dracula, and the dogs monster makeup is actually pretty good. With such a ludicrous premise you might expect them to go full comedy on this one, but they play it seriously and that ends up being part of the charm of the film.




Best Scene: Zoltan and his vampire pack come after Michael Pataki and Jose Ferrer while they are hiding out in a shack in classic "Night of the Living Dead" fashion.

Dishonorable Mention: Zoltan trips and falls to his death cartoon style after being confronted by a hairy chest and a cross necklace. Uncool. The way the ending unfolds is really unsatisfying.

Recommendation: Kind of dull, but possibly worth a watch for killer dog or vampire genre fans with a high cheese tolerance.




The Pack (2015)

Mainly a ripoff of: Every other trapped-in-a-house-by-monsters movie ever made. Totally unrelated to the 1977 film with the same title, however.

The Dog(s): A pack of large, intelligent, black-furred canines start out eating sheep but soon discover that humans are the most delicious prey of all.


Summary: An Australian family becomes trapped on their isolated sheep farm by vicious killer dogs. They must defend themselves with their wits and whatever tools come to hand. It becomes a bidirectional game of cat and mouse (so to speak) as the pack stalks the family and the family stalks the pack right back. Mom brings up the fact that dogs and even wolves simply don’t act like this under any circumstances known to humankind. This is a big plot hole in most killer-animal movies but the writers sidestep the issue. “Yes this is unrealistic and no we’re not going to explain it, so relax your puckering sphincter, Mr. Scrote, and deal with it.”

Best Scene: A police officer arrives in response to an emergency call from the farm and gets blindsided by the pack, who literally dog-pile on him and then drag away his corpse. The family sees the dogs stalking the unsuspecting officer but they can only watch helplessly when the pack moves in for the kill.


Dishonorable Mention: The writers contrive for all the gun ammunition to be scattered around the grounds of the farm in unlikely places. There are exactly two more rifle bullets in every cache the family finds, doled out like ammo power-ups in a survival-horror video game. This makes little sense from within the context of the movie but on a meta level it’s clearly done so the writers can avoid having Dad resolve everything pretty quickly with his gun.

Recommendation: Genre fans will want to see it for the well-done, realistic-looking dog attacks, although overall it doesn’t really stand out from the rest of the pack. (Ha ha, see what I did there?) It's well-executed with very good cinematography, and I never noticed any obvious CGI or puppetry. It has scares, suspense, and a sprinkling of gore, but it’s also basically a retread of things we've seen before. Even so, "The Pack" was more entertaining than most killer dog movies.

Keep My Grave Open

Keep My Grave Open Directed By SF Brownrigg, starring Camilla Carr (1974). 

Hey wait a sec---YouTube is broken, stop showing shitty home movies from the 70's or a very backwoods episode of The Incredible Hulk starring a soiled chubby hobo!

Thanks to horrorfanbaby on Youtube, who painstakingly uploaded his rare collection from the SF Brownrigg archives we have the pleasure to finally see this VHS tape rescued from the bottom of a Jack-N-The Box dumpster. I hate Brownrigg, I've mentioned this a bunch of times and why any of his shit is featured in the catalog or held in any kind of regard is beyond my comprehension, but what do I know? All I'm saying is, don't encourage him by putting these out on Blu-ray, they should remain in the same landfill as the E.T. Atari videogames and never to be unearthed. His son Tony is even around carrying on the legacy with a sequel to Don't Look in the Basement. That film as lame as it was is a bazillion times more entertaining than Grave. There's just so many missed opportunities for something, anything interesting to happen. The crackly washed out film quality looks like it was smothered in country gravy and giblets--getting hungry yet?

Get ready to weep for the homeless because that paunchy bum gets his head cracked open lickity split. According to the always reliable Oak Drive In (http://theoakdrivein.blogspot.com/2014/08/keep-my-grave-open-1976.html), Brownrigg worked for Larry Buchanan and honed his terrible skills in his editing suite. To me neither of them can hold a candle to the schlock master piece maker Joy N. Houck, who else likes that director but me anyway?

Oh man, that elephant is leaving his footprints all over that butter!

The terrible Waltons style psychedelic rock permeates the soundtrack. I can already tell I'm gonna hate this movie but I'm punishing myself because Grindhouse Releasing is putting it out (and they only buy top notch quality right?) and it's of course in the DR catalog so it must be documented.

A redhead who looks exactly like Kiki Dee and wears a French's mustard yellow blouse is the main character. She gets crazy headaches, meaning she might be a schizo and is pissed that her psychiatrist is bugging her.

(stop whistling Twisted Nerve, it's everybodies ringtone thanks to Tarantino)!

More country bumpkins show up, actually they seem more like nondescript shitty actors. The mop topped redhead talks to herself or yells very loudly , there's something wrong with her and with me for watching further!

She calls out to a mysterious Kevin, we don't know if he left her or he was murdered but we later find out. I almost can't believe it, but Pigs was actually more action packed than this shit. This film is an exercise in tolerance almost on a Warhol level of surreality or I can sit through this trash and still find some entertainment value. Speaking of Skunkape told me he just sat through Trash Humpers, which I'm betting was more exciting than Keep My Grave Open. Is it good, no it's fucking horrible! Why am I bothering, I don't have a rational response! 

CINEMATIC NYQUIL, NO COFFEE ON THE PLANET WILL KEEP YOU AWAKE!

I JUST SAW THE DAILIES, RETCHHHH

SHAMELESS PROMOTION ALERT: Support Liquid Cheese

Let me take this long overdue time to promote one of the best print zines currently out there by sometime contributor and all around genius writer, creator and fascinating dude Dave Kosanke for mentioning TOG in the pages of his wonderful magazine Liquid Cheese. I've been hooked lately on that mag and bought a couple of issues and so should you! Here's the link http://liquidcheesefanzine.storenvy.com/products/18075248-liquid-cheese-42. In practically every issue there's artwork by Rick Melton one of the most insanely talented artists working today. My favorite aspect is the dirt on Cinema Wasteland, because I've never been to any horror convention or comic con for that matter and wonder what goes on there, who's cool, who's a dick whatever goes down is discussed and it's always a laugh riot! Kosanke was also featured in the legendary Xerox Ferox book (which everyone should own a copy of). He also has a vintage porn zine called T.O.S.S. that's brilliant and you can just tell he genuinely cares and loves this shit as much as we do.

Melton's Blood Sucking Freaks artwork almost makes it look dignified!

Black Friday is coming up and you know you don't want to get trampled to death Wal-Mart/ Pete Townsend style, it's better to live another day to fight against fascism! We all love you Dave and print is still king, because facts and research will always outweigh blogs and making up bullshit weekly world news style! That is all for this commercial. BUY OR DIE!

Conton

CONTON (Jushin densetsu, Legend of the Beast God Chaos) Directed By Takuro Fukuda 1987.

I have no idea what to expect going in from this never released beyond a cruddy looking 8TH generation VHS tape dupe. It's been on my radar for at least a few years and I know I've stated this before, but we seriously are scraping the resin off the bottom of the barrel that is the VHS bootleg catalog. I'm currently working on publishing this shit so it can be away from the massive internet blackout that's probably coming soon (let's hope not)!

That crazy assed Skunkape procured this depraved film from the lower depths of the underground Tokyo trading circuit with blood and toil. This time even I tagged along and got in too deep, slicing off my pinky as a sign of honor just like Robert Mitchum did in THE YAKUZA to get a copy of this precious video, was it all worth it? Of course! So you’ll excuse the typos this time I hope, I mean it’s still seeping out pus and bloody mucus. I got my paw all bandaged up like DARKMAN clacking away at the science computer. Chas called this flick hallucinogenic, it came without subs and the tape even included something from the famed Deep Red Archives, man I wish I knew what that could've been. When I received my copy of LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET. from him, it came with stills from GATES OF HELL and stuff only Giannetto De Rossi had at the time (shit that's not even on the Blue Underground restored DVD).

So on with the review! If the opening 2 minutes and the grisly box cover are any indication, this is gonna be one mindfuck of a visual onslaught. Some dude named Goh (Tasashi Kato) is surrounded by cute babes eating ice cream but he's not very chipper, mainly because he's plagued by super vivid nightmares. I should mention how the title sequence directly steals from John Carpenter’s THE THING. The bad dreams show a hideous face with teeth like the Beezle-Tuna from DEVIL FISH or the poster from PARASITE with Demi Moore and a hulking mass of spikes eclipsed by blueish tones that in the beginning resemble the Slayers from KRULL.

I'M THE BABY GOTTA LOVE ME!

The prologue starts off by mentioning Zhuangzi and then one of the characters slips it into casual conversation. Hmm.. let me get over to the wiki to see if it’ll help me solve this riddle. Well actually there's a Chinese folk creature called a Hundun that's apparently the source of all chaos in their mythology. 

SHIT, I STEPPED ON A RUSTY NAIL AND GOT ROCK JAW!

The only critic online who seems aware of this movie is Jayson Kennedy of Ghoulbasement.com. Besides that review and the Deep Red catalog there’s practically zero info on this short film. Some loan shark punks try to extort the main protagonist and worse yet, he’s buried by student loans!

They play Claudio Simonetti rip off music and things get really nasty as Goh barfs up a human face that erupts yet another mouth, man M.C. Escher called he wants his masturbatory fever dream back!

Pink Floyd's popular album rendered in Nickolodeon slime 

This nerd keeps getting prank called by loan sharks who want to kill him, how can he possibly escape this mess? He’s caught in a shit sandwich between punks who want to waste Goh and the subconscious nightmarish figure that's stalking him, talk about a rotten day!

His room is pretty sweet, there’s all kinds of monster toys and a reversed GHOSTBUSTERS poster without a logo (maybe to prevent Ivan Reitman from suing or Paul Feig from raping the franchise).

Are you sure you don't want to call in the Tokyo Buns Busters in for backup?

Next we’re thrown face first into a totally 80’s aerobic montage. OK movie slow down, we haven’t established enough momentum for our main character to collect himself with a fleeting moment of introspection. So much happens in the 40 minute running time that other film makers could learn a thing or two from Takuro.

I’m starting to think Goh is the Steve Carell 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN character because he’s surrounded by toys, model kits and when a searingly hot girl is in his room, he ignores her and concentrates on his toys. There’s a cool Ultra-Q Garamon model next to an E.T. one, this dude's got some cool ass shit! He drifts off into one of the coolest nightmare sequences, a witchy severed head’s own face peels off and her giant eyeballs plop out of her skull and rolls around in a juicy pile of pork drippins and offal. Getting hungry?

fuck that Speak & Spell bullshit E.T., pick up the phone!

They seriously pack in a lot of action and gore into this 40 min short, the last film this length that impressed me was DRUMSTRUCK (https://vimeo.com/7754939), the one stuck on the end of TETSUO: THE IRONMAN. I mean I would literally rent that videotape just so I could see that film, which got me further into surf music.

SURF'S UP!

The last 6 minutes bust out all the gore and ape (pun intended) the Rick Baker AMERICAN WEREWOLF transformation scene. Instead of the lycanthrope form, he evolves into a Rawhead Rex/ porcupine menace and thrashes the shit outta anyone in sight, leaving no witnesses.

Then again who would believe it? The info on this movie is spotty or non existent, I guess I should hit Japan Wiki for more research. All you need to know is that it was totally rad and worth the wait! 

ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND AND WORTH THE TROUBLE.

hand me some Pantene, I need to get rid of these split ends!