DOGS

US, 1976, 90 minutes, Colour.
David Mc Callum, Sandra Mc Cabe, George Wyner, Linda Gray.
Directed by Burt Brinckerhoff.

If you want to see a pack of dogs transformed into killers going on a spree, then this is the film. Of course, it is reminiscent of Hitchcock’s classic, The Birds, as well as a number of films in the 1970s where animals for some reason started to prey on human beings. They range from Grizzly to The Food of the Gods (as well as the classic Jaws).

Burt Brinckerhoff directed films and series for television from the mid-1970s to 2006. This is his only film for cinemas. It also relies on a television cast led by David Mc Callum who was in The Man from UNCLE and Linda Gray who was about to go to Dallas. Perhaps a better film for mad dogs is the film version of Stephen King’s Cujo.

1. The bluntness of the title, its focus, expectations? Overtones of science fiction, the animal menace trend. horror? Blending of all?

2. The quality of the film as a thriller, low budget thriller, in the seventies' trend of animal menace, the quality of the treatment, straightforward, exploitive?

3. The atmosphere of authenticity with the locations, California, the town itself, homes, streets and shops? How real for the ordinary audience? The irony of presenting ordinary animals as the menace? The importance of the photographic effects, the gruesomeness of the horror? Terrifying the audience because of the plausibility?

4. The science overtones of this kind of horror? The science fiction trend of using mythology with menace and evil and destruction? How plausible were the explanations of the dogs hunting in packs? The exploration of nature confronting man? The dogs as symbol of evil coming on man, beyond his control?

5. How well did the film set the scene and involve the audience, homes, parties, the university, the people? The atmosphere of the classroom, science laboratories, research? The various individuals in the town and their roles of teaching, authority? The build-up of information about the situation, especially about the dead cattle?

6. Harlan Thompson as the hero? Offbeat and scruffy personality, his knowledge, research and theories? His relationship with Caroline? With Michael Fitzgerald as a colleague? How well delineated were the characters of Caroline and Michael? Their participation in the horror?

7. The sequences of investigation of the cattle, scientific research and explanation, looking at the ordinary dogs, the theory about their packing and moaning and attacking? The way that this was visualized in darkness, music, the various dogs shown in ordinary sequences becoming savage as they joined together?

8. The presentation of the children's sports afternoons, warnings, audience anticipation, the dog show and its being recognizable, the gradual change, menace, chasing and people's fright? The impact for the rest of the film?

9. The examination of the cattle, the visualizing of the death of the cattle, the long sequence of the posse going out, their foolhardiness in going out unprotected, the gradual build-up of menace and fear, their deaths?

10. Comment on those who were killed, the implications of political and administrative decisions about people's protection? The varying attitudes in the town? The sense of persecution by the dogs?

11. The university students and the sequence of their being menaced, their running to the library, the people trampled, the dogs pursuing, breaking through into the library, the massacre? The visualizing of this? The irony of Michael and its being revealed that he had died?

12. Thompson and Caroline and the home sequence, the growing danger, their isolation, the thin protection of the home, the dogs breaking in, the escape to the car, the threats in the garage and the continual build-up of fear? The ominous quiet of the morning after? The pathos of the discovery of those dead?

13. The ironic humour of the final radio announcement, wondering whether the fear was contagious, the close-up of the cat and its moaning?

14. How serious are the overtones of science and science fiction? How much just a contrived horror entertainment? Both?