Monster Dog (1984)




Director: Claudio Fraggaso

Since he's the "biggest rock star in the world", Vincent Raven decides to take himself and his four-man crew (!) to shoot his next music video out in the boonies at the old family homestead. On their way to Vince's secluded old home, the group accidentally runs over a dog and pulls over to take a look. While checking if the pooch is all right, they come across the local sheriff and his deputy who warn the group that a pack of mad dogs is on the loose, having killed five people already in the past couple days. Vince and his rather cute girlfriend also spot some type of crappy looking werewolf thing in the bushes; with both agreeing not to tell anyone what they saw (of course). Arriving at the old mansion we get the group member who has some premonitions in the traditional "everyone is going to die" vein, as well as the classic "prophet of doom" gag from some strange old man/drunk/bum who says that, well, everyone's going to die. It's horror movie cliché 101 kiddies. After a lot of really bad dialogue and acting we soon learn that Vince's father once suffered from lycanthropic tendencies and was killed by a local posse. So now we're left to wonder if maybe Vince is the werewolf/monster dog thing, or maybe someone else. Of course, everyone saw Vince and the dog thing in the same shot together earlier in the film, so that kills the suspense of that story angle. So the big question now is who is the monster and does one even really give a shit?

If you can make it 30 minutes into this one without having turned the VCR off, I'll give you credit. Everything about this one just stinks. The acting and dialogue is simply dreadful, but that's not where I had my main beef with this one. The main problem here is that absolutely nothing happens. Nothing. I thought maybe we'd get some juicy monster dog attacks but nope. There is a very brief "head blown up by shotgun" bit at the very end but it's way to little and fucking way to late. The title monster also looks really pathetic, and reminded me of a rubbery puppet in some shots, which indeed it probably was. To be honest, my main reason for sticking with this one was due to the fact that my main man and frequent visitor to Apocalypse Headquarters, Alice Cooper, has the starring role in this one. The Coop does ok with what he's got, but its hilarious to hear his voice in the film, since all actors (Spanish and American) had their voices dubbed. Funny shit. Alice die-hards may want to take a look at this one just for the hell of it, but everyone else needs to stay far away from this one. I think even AC would agree with me when I say piss on this one.

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