I've been watching: Doghouse

So let me start out by saying I in no way attempt to pass this off as me thinking I'm a critic... I'm not, I have a friend who is a critic and he is far more witty and probably a lot more professional than I. These are simply my views on a film I've watched for the purpose of (hopefully) entertaining you.

SPOILERS AHOY!

I in no way hated Doghouse, as far as films go it was pretty entertaining, and I'm pretty certain that to entertain is this films only real purpose. Any deeper meaning[s] that can be gleaned from it are fairly obvious, for instance you could take it that running away from your problems in a relationship can only lead to trouble... Trouble in this case being 'pissed off man-hating feminist cannibals'.

The film itself has a pretty believable hook at least; the group organise a 'lads weekend' for Vince who is being divorced. So naturally they go to a little village in the middle of nowhere cheerily named 'Moodley' where the women supposedly outnumber the men 4-1 according to Mikey (Noel Clarke). Mikey being a character that can be summed up with this picture:

Yep. That's Noel Clarke with a cigar up his nose, as you do. In fact that picture pretty much sums up the groups actions for the entire movie, you see the obvious 'safe' course of action and then you see the group do the total mind bendingly moronic opposite. My favourite example being near the end of the film where they activate a device that disables the zombies (Great, movie over they are safe now... Right? RIGHT?! Wrong.), and then proceed to turn it off and on again, as if that wasn't bad enough Neil (Danny Dyer) throws the remote to Mikey and this results in the remote smashing and deactivating. That having been said the fact they behave like stereotypical 'lads' isn't a bad thing, I think it's actually what makes this movie avoid being totally awful and simply be hilari-bad at points and genuinely funny at points (I chuckled).

So let's talk about the zombies/mutants almost every female cast member of this film. They vary in intelligence throughout the film, being intelligent enough to use weapons and chop down a sign one of the cast members is hiding up, and also too stupid to use doors and being so easily confused the cast members manage to fool them by simply walking inside a shop and closing the door.

The mutants are created by a virus (biological weapon) that the army have decided to test on the town (because lab conditions are for suckers). The idea being to create a weapon that could turn one half of the population on the other... So, mission successful there! However the Geneva Convention may not like you using it so very much. Human rights and all that, I'm pretty sure you do have the right not to wake up to a weaponised virus turning your significant other into a flesh eating crazy right there in your own bed.

Oh and for those of you wondering what they look like: 

Kind of entertaining how a mutant bride is one of the main recurring zombies in this film really. Well I won't bore you with pointing out the obvious so I'll simply move on to the fact half way through this film the zombies 'level up' and enter phase 2, where they all mutate further and grow claws and supposedly become smarter. Personally even though this is pretty far-fetched I'm not going to bring that argument to the table for two reasons:

1. It's a movie about a virus that only affects women in the first place
2. Three of the main characters fool the zombies by dressing in drag... What? Don't believe me?

Scary right? Or not, if you're into that kind of thing, I won't judge you.


The main problem I have with this movie is the ending, it felt very predictable and slightly like it didn't need to happen, the group find themselves escaping in the minibus (the same minibus that has been sat there with only one mutant in it for the entire mother fr@cking film) only to get a call from their friend who somehow survived being body slammed by a truly massively obese woman from a story up. The group then turns around to go save their buddy, in the process they needlessly total the bus! This is the point where the earlier mentioned tomfoolery with the zombie disabling remote occurs, then when that fails they escape pushing their injured friend in a trolley. It's at this point the credits roll... I am assuming this is shortly before the cast get eaten for attempting to escape into woods they have been told are crammed to the nines with the infected, because lets face it there is no way they are effecting any real escape in their states of fitness with only a trolley and their legs... Then again judging by the mutants intelligence they could just glue some leaves to their faces and pretend to be trees.


Oh and an award has to be given for the worst death of the film, this award goes to the character 'Banksy' for being stabbed with a beer bottle that he then bleeds to death out of.

So... That must of sucked. Another note on Banksy is that he is in the movie for all of probably under 10 minutes of screen time before he is killed due to him being late to the weekend. So his character basically exists just to get stabbed with that beer bottle... Damn!


From a more technical standpoint this movie has been put together rather well with no camera angles that made me feel like they where totally out of place and decent use of shots to set up comedic or jumpier moments (competent if predictable). The gore is also way up there and is comparable with Shaun of the Dead in quality and quantity... Actually maybe a bit under Shaun of the Dead in quality that movie was fantastic.


In conclusion because I can't really think of much more to write about this film:

 Entertaining with some good funny moments and a smattering of truly cringey moments, worth watching once anyway.


2.5/5 brains... Might revise that.