Monster Dog (1984)

"You're making records, videos, movies, on high-tech electronic equipment of fantastic sophistication. And you're scared of werewolves!"  - Sandra

Vincent Raven is a rock star returning to his hometown to film a music video, but the locals warn him that someone let the dogs out.
Starring: Alice Cooper, Victoria Vera, and an overworked fog machine

Link to IMDB

Why am I here ?

Monster Dog was directed by Claudio Fragasso, who is also responsible for the infamous Troll 2. This should give you an idea on the quality of this one, although it's nowhere near as silly or memorable. The story deals with a legend of local werewolves, and is played very straight and stays firmly in the horror style as they attempt to emulate the works of Argento, Fulci and Bava. But Fragasso mostly fails at capturing their style. With Alice Cooper starring, I was hoping for a cheesy movie where he could really throw his charisma around and have fun being a rock star fighting off monsters, but instead everything is delivered dead serious and he spends most of the time just moping around in the fog.


As the movie crawls along, slowly revealing some back-story on the past of Vincent's troubled family, there's actually a bit of suspense and a few gory moments to keep the danger feeling real. We do get a few glimpses of some sort of monster, but I spent half the time just trying to figure out if I was watching a dream sequence, a music video, or the actual plot itself. What adds to this confusion is the liberal use of a fog machine, doing its best to keep the movie in a constant state of spooky surrealism. There's also some very poor voice dubbing, which doesn't bother me in general, except that Cooper didn't even dub his own dialog. When you're familiar with someone's voice it's very distracting to hear some other guy saying all the lines.

We'll be safe here, miles away from the plot.

"You look like a couple of queers to me! Queers make...... MY STOMACH TURN!"  - Redneck

Fog dogs

Some local cowboy jerks eventually come looking for trouble, as they believe the legends and rumours that Vincent's family is cursed. This finally gives the characters something to do, but it takes a long time before any actual monsters, dogs or "monster dogs" join in the action. The movie does have a decently mysterious story and even some unintentional humour, especially in the second half, but the memorable moments are far apart. Meanwhile, I was resigned to mostly sit in the dark watching the fog roll by.




Be sure not to miss:
- There's two Alice Cooper songs, so at least we get to see him have some fun with those.
- Stop saying "crisises." It's not a word!!
- In the dream sequence, her shirt says "Dream" on it. Thanks, wardrobe!
- Fog, fog and more fog.
- Well, I might as well include the music video for Identity Crisises  (spoiler free)

Internet review:
"why it turns into a spaghetti Western halfway through is anybody's guess." - SeanG

Should I watch it?
There's definitely something here, but it would be better with a few beers and someone to laugh along with.

Where can I find it?
This video works.
Apparently there's also a decent transfer version on Netflix.

Monster Dog gets...