Deadly Dogs vol. 4

DEADLY DOGS 4

By Goat Scrote

Atomic Dog

In this installment, misunderstood mutant dogs...









... trained killer Nazi dogs...

The Boys From Brazil

...and experimental Army dogs off their leash.

Dogs of Hell

The Boys from Brazil (1978)

Mainly a ripoff of: “They Saved Hitler's Brain” plus “The Omen”

The Dog(s): Dobermans trained by a paranoid racist are commanded by a child-aged clone of Adolf Hitler to kill mad scientist Josef Mengele. Holy fuck! The dogs are scary and the kid is scarier, but they only become important during the climax in the final twenty minutes.

Summary: A young man searching for escaped Nazi war criminals discovers clues leading him toward a horrifying conspiracy by surviving Nazis to "re-create" Hitler. There are 94 clones which have been adopted out all over the world. They are being brought up under conditions that will help warp them into having a twisted psyche like der Führer, and also put them into positions of influence when they are adults. Somehow the movie avoids being cheesy and maintains a very dark tone. A determined investigator puts the pieces together to figure out what is really happening.

Best Scene: The denouement shows one of the cloned Hitler kids in a darkroom. He is developing photographs of the bloody murder scene. He has kept a trophy of his first murder, a trinket carried by his victim. Mengele may be dead, but this scene assures us that the chilling consequences of his experiment will torment future generations. It's a solid skin-crawler of an ending.

Dishonorable Mention: More of the dogs, please! Oh, and more dead Nazis!

Recommendation: This is a pretty darn good flick from the director of “Patton” (1970), “Papillon” (1973) and “Planet of the Apes” (1968), with a superb cast including Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, and James Mason. Steve Gutenberg is also in the movie. The horror at the core of this movie is the threat of a resurgence of fascism in a new generation, which has a special power to terrify at this moment in history. Very highly recommended!

Dogs of Hell (1983) 
(aka Rottweiler)

Mainly a ripoff of: Anyone who paid to watch it. Not to be confused with Brian Yuzna’s unrelated film “Rottweiler” (2004).

The Dog(s): Well, they tell us there is a pack of killer Rottweilers, but the absence of evidence on screen leaves me unconvinced.

Summary:  Southern good ol’ boys vs. escaped, out-of-control, military-trained Rottweilers. That sounds awesome on paper! The movie itself is a steaming pile, unfortunately. The first kill is at 20 minutes, but the dogs are still just sound effects. There’s a mud wrestling scene at 23 minutes and I’m relieved that at least there is some kind of action on-screen, even if it is dubious “comedy” which does absolutely nothing at all to move the story forward. The first actual dog appears on the screen at 26 minutes, just barely. I was 49 minutes deep in my journey into boredom before I noticed another dog appearance. The pack appears to consist of two dogs, who show up, get killed, and are immediately replaced by two identical dogs. “Rottweiler” was released theatrically in 3D. There are a number of really cheesy shots like a dart on a string coming toward the camera. The 3D moments would have been groan-worthy filler even with the gimmick.

Best Scene:  A rottweiler gets his head blown off with a shotgun! Actually it’s not that great, but it’s the closest thing to an exciting moment that this movie has to offer.

Dishonorable Mention: During the mud-wrestling scene, the sheriff sucker-punches a citizen with no provocation, after getting the perp to relax by lying that he won't hit the guy. What a total cocksmith. Oh, he's the hero? I guess I was supposed to think he was awesome because he can punch so hard. Also, it's really, really obvious that the filmmakers had exactly two Rottweilers. That's just fucking insulting. Show a few seconds here and there of five or six dogs running through the woods to make the rest of the illusion work. It's just plain stupid filmmaking, and the whole boring mess is made with the same lack of craft. In fact, I declare this entire movie to be a Dishonorable Mention. Take that, you big dumb movie.

Recommendation: Slow and boring, hardly any animal action, ineptly done, and that sheriff is no Joe Don Baker. This was a rough one to get through, folks. Hard pass. So very hard.

Atomic Dog (1998)

Mainly a ripoff of: "Beast of Yucca Flats" retold as an After-School Special… with dogs!

The Dog(s): Cerberus the "Atomic Dog”, Trixie, Lobo, and Scamp… a very dysfunctional canine family. Industry pro Roger Schumacher was head animal trainer.

Summary: A puppy named Cerberus gets caught in a minor atomic accident and is left behind by his owner when the contaminated power plant is abandoned. He grows up to be a super-intelligent dog with strong family values. Cerberus has been abandoned, abused, and attacked by humans, and eventually kills a teenager who shot at him with a rifle. The lonely Atomic Dog frees a family pet, Trixie, and takes her back to his radioactive love nest. Some time later, she drags herself home to deliver a pair of pups before she dies. From afar, Cerberus watches his pups, Lobo and Scamp, grow up. When Lobo violently turns on his human family and is taken to the veterinarian, Cerberus kills the veterinarian to free his son. Lobo is blamed for the death, and later shot. Cerberus begins a campaign of revenge. Scamp continues to protect his human family from his father. The grieving Atomic Dog kidnaps the youngest daughter of the family as a replacement for his lost son. Her family tries to rescue her and has a confrontation with the Atomic Dog. In the end, Cerberus sacrifices himself to save the little girl, and Scamp comforts his dying father.

Best Scene: The final fight between Cerberus and the humans. He uses his wits to beat them. When they shoot him with darts, he immediately pulls them out with his teeth. He works loose the knots securing big waste containers and drops them on the human father and son. It’s a good climax, relative to the rest of the movie.

Dishonorable Mention: What kind of Homer Simpson level moron would bring a puppy to their job at a nuclear power plant?

Recommendation: Extremely tame made-for-TV fare, this is what would happen if Hallmark Hall of Fame started churning out low-budget horror. The animals are very well trained, but overall mediocrity makes this is a snoozer and you can safely skip it.

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.

The Worm Eaters

[check out Paul J. Zamarelli's VHS Collector site]

The Worm Eaters Directed and Starring Herb Robbins (1977). 

I'm completely repulsed that they've finally unveiled the secret of this disgusting underground society. There's a few famous members like those Mopey twins from the Kids in the Hall and Andrew Zimmern. Make no mistake this is a fetish film, we see wrigglers slithering in and about girls open mouths, I'd imagine certain people will find this boner-iffic! Not me however I'm a regular meat and potatoes joe lunch pail when it comes to sex. 

I didn't mean to turn you on, by that I mean me.

The credit sequence which looks like a hideous coloring book with crayon scrawlings of worms on a hotdog over the American flag, has that famous "Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates me" song on kazoo. Mikels, who from what Psychotronic has told us is a wife collecting Mormon but maybe he's also into vermiphillia. Or deriving sexual gratification from slimy or buggy things doing the wild rumpus on your genitals. Be warned only twisted weirdos aka regular TOG readers should venture further.

Makin America Eat Shit Again!

It starts off at a party. Ursula a bratty like twerp tears open her birthday cake to find a bunch of brown wrigglers then everyone at the party scatters Benny Hill style. That's not even the beginning of the bad comedy or acting that's abhorrent. We don't see any of these characters later so put them out of your mind. 

A dude named Herb Robbins wrote, acted and directed this film. Robbins cut his teeth in the schlocky B-movie circuit and was in R.D. Steckler flicks like The Lemon Grove Kids, Tobe Hooper's Funhouse and weirdest of all Convoy with Ernest Borgnine as Dirty Lyle (he's one of the barflies lurking in the back). So as you watch him act like an offensive methed out stereotypical homeless immigrant, keep in mind that he had a career and possibly made a living!  

Can't I just masturbate in private?

I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to tackle this film from the illustrious Deep Red catalog but this new Crackle style app on Roku called Tubeit-tv has a copy, so I'm checking it out! I hate how all these apps force you to watch the same commercials over and over. I miss the old days of searching through stacks of videos to find an obscure trashy movie--the future sucks! OK, enough of my bitching, back to the review.

Herman, the main worm farmer looks like a soiled homeless cracker in crusty overalls. He has a thick nondescript Euro-accent and is really gross and unlikeable. He talks to the night crawlers that hide in his socks and slither around on his neck while he's driving. This movie is bat-shit crazy!! There's this Miss Yvonne type redhead who delivers gobbledygook lines--I mean I had no idea what she was saying! She might've been speaking clear as a bell English, but my ears couldn't interpret it. Herman obviously tricks people into eating live worms, that's basically the gimmick here. I almost horked out my dinner as I watched this disgusto-thon! I have a pretty low tolerance for watching mouths stuffed with real earthworms, it's so fucking revolting, I was even haunted by it later and it pissed me off as I attempted to enjoy a meal! So--Yes, this movie works to upset your stomach. 

That's nuthin compared to that time when I queefed on Chairry

Herman's pests mostly cause women to choke and die because apparently no one in this town bothered to learn the heimlich. These three women go on and on about hot dogs for some reason, maybe they love the flavor of ground up hog anus over worms. And what's even worse is that once they chow down they don't die, they become the matted skid marked protagonist's humanoid fish bait slaves (or worm people). Herman makes fun of some hippies trying to protest and most of the citizens around town attempt to bring the comedy but it's totally devoid of any real laughs, it's just fucked up and confusing.

I keep telling you we gotta special order that Japanese rape tentacle porn mag you wanted!

The only thing I could sort of compare it to might be if H.G. Lewis and Nick Zedd collaborated but that sounds better than this bullshit! Eventually his victims transform into giant worms. But why does this movie exist at all, it's giving me a migraine wondering who would respond to this, maybe creeps who enjoy sneaking horrifying shit into people's food and get off on that. When the women turn into annelids, they chitter a sound like Cousin Itt.

I love See Fooood!

Greg Goodsell claims there's a subplot concerning small town politics, he knows his shit and maybe I was too busy barfing into a patented "Howard Scott Up Chuck Cup" to pay attention. All week anytime I tried to enjoy my meal all I would think about was close-ups of people gulping down fried chicken with worms slithering around in their lips--BLAAARRGGHHHHH! If this sounds like a masturbatory trigger for you then by all means go out of your way to see it, just stay away from me! If you wished and dreamed that scene in Pink Flamingoes where Divine eats poodle shit and chomps open mouthed was played over and over again then this is the movie for you!

TOTALLY UNREDEEMABLE TO SOME, FOR OTHERS MAY CAUSE AROUSAL

Deadly Dogs vol. 2

by Goat Scrote

Your killer dogs for today are an adorably evil bunch...

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Mainly a ripoff of: Bloodsucking Freaks meets Leave it to Beaver, set in H.H. Holmes' Murder Castle.

The Dog(s): Prince the Rottweiler enjoys a steady diet of human flesh. He never actually kills anyone during the running time of the movie but he sure does try. He's also a thousand times more fun than the "Devil Dog" or all the pooches in "Dogs" put together, thanks to the writing/directing of Wes Craven and the work of head animal trainer Roger Schumacher (who also worked on "The Pack" and "Atomic Dog”).


Summary: Craven's weird tale revolves around a good-hearted young teen who gets pulled into a plan to burglarize a wealthy home. He and co-burglar Ving Rhames discover that they have entered an inescapable house of horrors where kidnapped children are held prisoner and mutilated. Wendy Robie and Everett McGill are awesomely unhinged as sister-brother psychopaths Mommy and Daddy.

Best Scene: Daddy's gimp-suit-and-shotgun rampage. FUCK YES.

Dishonorable Mention: When the dead dog flops through the wall you can tell it's an animatronic pooch mixed with shots of the real thing. It's not a very large flaw, in the grand scheme of things.

Recommendation: One of my favorite B-movies,  drop what you’re doing and watch it immediately.

And When She Was Bad (1981)
(aka “Madhouse”, aka “There Was a Little Girl”)

Mainly a ripoff of: Pretty much any giallo you’d care to name.


The Dog(s): A throat-ripping Rottweiler trained by a homicidal lunatic to kill on command.

Summary: A woman is stalked by her insane twin sister and sister's canine murder weapon. The bizarre twists and turns of the story make very little sense, and the special effects are a little bit Muppet Show in places, but there are some gruesomely good moments too. This was a UK “Video Nasty” because of the bloody violence and twisted themes.

Best Scene: A warped birthday party for the twins full of posed corpses in party hats. This occurs near the end of the film, and is memorably disturbing.

Dishonorable Mention: The dog busts headfirst through a door, only to get a power drill into the brain-pan. This is a satisfying scene story-wise but the dog puppet faintly resembles Fozzie Bear! The use of low-quality puppets is a comical distraction in many serious scenes, this one in particular. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be pointing and giggling.

Recommendation: It’s not great but it is not nearly as terrible as it could have been.  It's bloody and weird, so if you like killer dog movies or obscure 80’s slasher flicks then you’ll probably find this enjoyable too.

Day of the Animals (1977)
(aka "Something is Out There")

Mainly a ripoff of: Every pre-1977 killer animal movie.

The Dog(s): Domestic dogs who develop a thirst for human blood.

Summary: Animals turn homicidal as a result of the recently discovered (it was the 70s) depletion of the ozone layer. The strange effect starts at higher altitudes, and the story follows a group of hikers caught in the mountains when the critters start to become unnaturally vicious. Lots of different animals get a chance to take a chunk out of humankind in this one. Just when the surviving hikers think they have reached safety, they must face off against a giant pack of crazed domestic dogs. There's a heap of cool animal footage, but the special effects are quite bad. Hammy acting and crappy special effects multiply the camp factor. Director William Girdler also made the animal-attack thriller Grizzly, a low-budget Jaws knockoff, so he had some previous experience in the genre.

Best Scene: Leslie Nielsen's "god" speech, attempted rape, and bear-wrasslin’ match, which occur one after another about two-thirds of the way through. It’s melodramatic, sleazy, and ludicrous entertainment.

Dishonorable Mention: Bashing this movie would be too much like beating up the good-natured village idiot. The jumping attack-rats are too funny for me to hate, but it could be the most ridiculous scene in an extremely ridiculous movie.

Recommendation: Good trashy man-vs.-nature fun, one of the most enjoyable of the 70s era B-grade eco-horror films. I just don’t think they quite realized that they were making a comedy.