Directed by: Jake West
Starring: Danny Dyer, Stephen Graham, Noel Clarke, and Emil Marwa
Plot: A group of men head to a remote village to help one of their friends get over his divorce; when they get there, though, they discover that all the women have been infected with a virus that makes them man-hating cannibals. Taken from www.imdb.com.
As I said in my review of "The Cottage" there's a new type of movie coming out of Britian. Movies such as "Severance", "Evil Aliens", and "The Cottage" that are filled with dark humor, usually set the film up as a genre other than horror (in this case some sort of drunken sex comedy), and involve rougher treatment of the heroes (often bodily mutilation) that's not typical to the genre.
Of this sub-genre of film I think "Doghouse" is easily the best of all. Jake West, director of "Evil Aliens", has made the slightly larger budgeted and much better acted progression of his alien horror comedy and "Doghouse" truly is everything "Evil Aliens" was and wasn't.
It's about Neil (Danny Dyer), Vince (Stephen Graham), Mikey (Noel Clarke), Matt (Lee Ingleby), Patrick (Keith-Lee Castle), Graham (Emil Marwa), and Banksy (Neil Maskell) a group of childhood friends who have gotten together for a weekend of drinking and womanizing in a remote town in Great Britian.
Unfortunately this town has become the home of an airborne virus that infects only women and turns them into murderous mutant creatures that kill and devour men. Hijinks ensue!
There's a lot of people in this movie but only 3 of them matter, let's talk about them! First up we have Noel Clarke, who you will probably remember as Mickey from the new "Doctor Who" series. Noel is important and does a good job but not important enough to talk about further!
Stephen Graham, best known as Tommy from "Snatch", is the closest thing this movie has to a main character. Vince is the victim of a nasty divorce and a beat down broken man as a result of it. The entire weekend excursion is for Vince's benefit and its his growth as a character that the movie follows. Unfortunately Vince's growth is given a sidebar a lot in favor of a few more unnecessary characters that seem to be there for the sole purpose of becoming dead.
Of course Graham is overshadowed by the always brilliant Danny Dyer as Neil, a womanizing hard drinking chauvanist who's just too awesome to not love. He plays essentially the same character he played in "Severance" and gets treated even worse in this one. Dyer is most of the reason to watch this movie and he steals every scene he's in.
This is one of those dodgy films that has a cheap thrills premise and a surprisingly deeper meaning. Of course tons of people are going to file it as straight up misogyny as they seem to have with "Antichrist" (more on that later when that film stops haunting my nightmares). The movie even seems to make fun of this with a line between Graham and Vince where Graham is mourning the infection of their female bus driver, Vince goes "This is no time to stop objectifying women."
But at its core the message here is about friendship and that you don't have to be a beaten animal to be sensitive and fair to the opposite sex. Admittedly, this sub-plot is only for people who insist on over-analyzing movies like myself and if you don't notice this lesson it shouldn't hurt your enjoyment.
"Doghouse" truly is a big messy gore-fest that's rife with juvenile humor and rude jokes. If that's not your thing then why in fucking hell are you reading this you stupid cockbag? (Go back to Canada!)
It starts out a bit like a zombie movie but partway through the women go into "phase 2" which causes them to mutate and become faster, stronger, and smarter (and inexplicably get spikes on their shoulders.)
As far as plot goes... eh... As I said, all the non-Vince characters with the possible exception of Graham and a few others are there to simply die or become horribly injured. There is some effort to explain the epidemic in the form of some weapons testing involving bogus laundry detergent and a politician named Meg Nut. Of course we're only given the very basic knowledge of this and never really find out what Meg Nut has to do with any of it. Perhaps it's foreshadowing a sequel, but I really don't see how.
These gripes are all rather small however as if you're looking at plot and meaning then you're really looking at this movie too close and should start your own shitty blog where you curse and berate whatever random strangers stumble in looking for a webcomic about indie-rock enthusiasts.
It's a brutal, gory, and very fun movie that is worth wasting the hour and a half on for cheap entertainment value. You can get something more out of "Doghouse" than just gooey enjoyment but there's really no need to.
I give "Doghouse" a 5 out of 5. Buy it. (unless you're American, then you have to either get a region free DVD player or wait for someone to release it stateside.)
What's that? Torrents? Why those are illegal! That would be wrong.
And remember kids...
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