★★½
“Dogged by problems”
I’ve seen a lot of reviews slagging this off as irredeemably bad, and that’s fair comment. Its execution is often lazy to the point of incompetence, and the talents of the cast are largely wasted. And, yet… Was I not entertained? More than I expected, reading those reviews. Oh, sometimes in the wrong way, certainly. But it’s clear the makers were in on the joke. To a certain degree, as with the likes of Sharknado, that critic-proofs it, because it is intended to be stupid and implausible. When you have a dog running around for half the film with a wine-bottle on its muzzle, or canines which can climb trees and ropes… Yeah, it’s clear the creators aren’t letting reality get in the way.
This is a spiritual sequel to 2006’s The Breed, in which Michelle Rodriguez and her friends land on an island populated by feral attack dogs. Society wasn’t holding its breath for a follow-up, yet here we are. In this version, a film about those events gets abandoned, and 13 years later, influencer Vince Vertura brings five colleagues to the island location to rescue the now thoroughly wild pups. This goes about as well as you would expect, and they quickly start getting turned into doggie chow. Siblings Violet (Curry) and Collins (Steiner), have to try and survive, with the kinda help of Vertura’s personal assistant, Thalia (Gardner), and the other, largely useless, Internet personalities.
I was hoping for more, based off the poster, and the fact that this re-teams Currey and Gardner, who worked so well together in the awesome Fall. This is not awesome, though I did laugh at the exchange between them:
– What idiots climb up a cellphone tower?
– Someone with a death wish, that’s who.
clearly intended as a knowing reference to their previous film. Oh, and if you are expecting much Hayden Panettiere, given the artwork, you will be disappointed. She shows up at the beginning, then vanishes until the very end. Though she does end up going full Kristi Noem on the dogs, as they besiege the boat on which Violet and Thalia are holed up. [Yeah, I watched a certain South Park episode last night!]
There is some light bow-work from Violet, and it’s certainly a movie that will be appreciated more by cat people, if you know what I mean. You will have to be very tolerant of effects for the dog attacks, which rarely reach the level of anything remotely convincing. Say what you like about The Breed, at least they did use real animals. These are largely bad CGI, and I speak as someone who has seen far too many straight-to-video Chinese films, which set the bar for bad CGI. The Furst’s filmography is littered with movies titled such as Trailer Park Shark or Ghost Shark, and this is not dissimilar. Indeed, at one point a dog falls overboard right into the mouth of a shark. If you don’t find that greatly amusing, this may not be for you.
Dir: The Furst Brothers
Star: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Riele Downs, Zak Steiner