[Doghouse]
Plot:A minibus full of single men on retreat to help one of their number through a rough divorce, are soon pitted against a town full of women driven mad by an airborne toxin that affects only the fairer sex, turning them into violent, bloodthirsty fiends who prey upon their menfolk.

Cast:Danny Dyer, Noel Clarke, Christina Cole, Emily Booth.

My Thoughts:Exactly what you'd expect, which is the problem.

Review:"Doghouse" is the followup effort to ''Evil Aliens" from British director Jake West. Both movies have nothing in common, but West decided "Doghouse" would make a good sophmore pic. While the film looked good with it's promotional materials and all, at the end of the day, the actual movie is too juvenile, immature, and cliche to be of any real value to the genre. The film follows a group of guys who are fed up with their significant others (women), and the opposite sex in general.

To add some diversity to the film however, one of the main male characters is made into a gay man. Which works more to the films discredit than anything else. At any rate, the leader of the crew decides to take his boys out to a manly nature retreat in a village way out from the city. Where they can do guy stuff, and rediscover their manly roots, so to speak. However upon arriving there, driven by their guide, a friendly blonde...they soon learn the town has been overrun by demonic women, who have undergone some sort of transformation into murderous she-demon-like creatures.

How has this happened? And will the men live long enough to find out? This film does an excellent job when it comes to creature fx, makeup effects, and the like. But the script is weak and the characters too annoying to care about or cheer for. I found myself disinterested in the notion of any of these guys surviving this ordeal. Usually in a film full of annoying or obnoxious characters, you'll find atleast one to cheer for. I could not here.

I cheered for the blonde woman who drove them there to survive. Not gonna say whether or not she did, but she was about the only person I was rooting for here. Danny Dyer makes an appearance in this film as the lead obnoxious guy. He's the true alpha male of the group, but his character is too similar to plenty of other loud-mouthed, neanderthalish British toughs from previous horror films. Dyer is a good actor, but this particular character, for him, lacked the necessary depth to be any good, or allow Dyer to make the character likeable or relateable to the viewer.

This movie has a lot of blood, gore and violence, but many of the scenes are not choreographed really well. And the deaths are not unique or memorable in any way. Most of them are standard, and while they are bloody, they are nothing to write home about in the realm of standing out, or being shokcingly awesome or anything. The performances beyond Dyer weren't very strong either.

And like I mentioned above, because Dyer's character was so flawed in the film, he couldn't carry the movie like he might would've been if his character had been better crafted. I got the gist of the movie though. The whole boys club, male-bonding, even around a really fucked up tragedy, and all of that. And while that could've worked really well within the context of this movie, it was focused on too much, and put into such a cliche box that it failed to do any of the things that it was capable of, and that I had hoped it could do.

The films conclusion is also pretty weak. It doesn't contain any suspense, thrills, excitement, anything. It seems to go at it's own pace, and just go through the motions. Rather than bring anything spectacular or out of the ordinary to the table. The movie blends the genres of the supernatural, zombies, and slasher films together really well. It just doesn't handle the material good enough to the point where the movie can reach it's full potential though. While "Doghouse" visually brings it's A game, script wise, it's a C student.

Positives:Dyer gives a good performance, the sceneries and visuals were nice. Great creature and monster effects work.

Negatives:Like I said, a weak, cliche, and by-the-book script. No surprises or excitement for the most part.

Overall:One and a half stars out of four.





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