Der Höllenhund

During the heyday of made-for-TV horror films, there were two big names: Dan Curtis and Curtis Harrington. Both were prolific, their productions making up the bulk of the best 1970's tele-horror sub-genre.

DEVIL DOG: THE HOUND OF HELL is one of Mr. Harrington's better occult offerings.

A Satanic cult, led by a mysterious woman (the magnificent Martine Beswick), sets out to manifest a demon into a German Shepherd dog. Their quest for global dominion ensues.

After losing their family dog, Mike and Betty Barry (Richard Crenna and Yvette Mimieux) "coincidentally" acquire a new pup. Named "Lucky" by their overjoyed daughter (Kim Richards), all seems hunky dory. That is, until the odd occurrences and deadly "accidents" begin.

Harrington does a great job of not only making the titular pooch seem menacing, but also young Ms. Richards' character and her brother (Ike Eisenmann). Ms. Mimieux is quite alluring when she takes her walk on the dark side as well! Crenna stands tall throughout, as the everyman caught up in these devilish circumstances.

Loaded with demonic shenanigans and mystical goings-on, this movie should thrill all lovers of such fiendish fare, especially the big, final conflict...

I ran across this several years ago while channel surfing on a Sunday afternoon. Though it was obviously a cheesy TV movie from the 70s, the direction and score were well done enough that it grabbed my attention, and indeed I was hooked and had to watch it through to the end. I recently got the opportunity to buy a foreign DVD of this film (oops, didn't notice a domestic one had finally come out a couple months prior), and was very pleased to be able to watch it again (and in its entirety).

I don't wholly understand the phenomenon, but somehow the 70s seem to have a lock on horror movies that are actually scary. The decades prior to the 70s produced some beautifully shot films and the bulk of our enduring horror icons, but are they actually scary? No, not very. Likewise in the years since the 70s we've gotten horror movies that are cooler, more exciting, have much better production values and sophisticated special effects, are more fun, funnier, have effective "jump" moments, and some very creative uses of gore, but again... they aren't really scary! There's just something about the atmosphere of the 70s horror films. The grainy film quality. The spookily dark scenes unilluminated by vast high-tech lighting rigs. The "edge of dreamland" muted quality of the dialogue and the weird and stridently EQ'd scores. The odd sense of unease and ugliness permeating everything. Everything that works to undermine most movies of the 70s, in the case of horror, works in its favor.

Specifically, in this film, the quiet, intense shots of the devil dog staring people down is fairly unnerving. So much more effective than if they had gone the more obvious route of having the dog be growling, slavering, and overtly hostile ("Cujo"?). The filmmakers wisely save that for when the dog appears in its full-on supernatural form. The effects when that occurs, while unsophisticated by today's standards, literally gave me chills. The bizarre, vaguely-defined, "I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at" look intuitively strikes me as more like how a real supernatural vision would be, rather than the hyper-real, crystal clear optical printer / digital compositor confections of latter-day horror films.

While the human characters in this film are not as satisfyingly rendered as their nemesis or the world they inhabit, the actors all do a decent job. The pairing of the brother and sister from the "Witch Mountain" movies as, yes, brother and sister, is a rather cheesy bit of stunt casting, but they do fine. Yvette Mimieux always manages to be entertaining if unspectacular. Richard Crenna earns more and more empathy from the audience as the film progresses. His self-doubt as he wonders whether his family's alienness is truly due to a supernatural plot or whether he's merely succumbing to paranoid schizophrenia is pretty well handled, though his thought that getting a routine physical may provide an explanation for what he's been experiencing is absurd in its naïveté.

The movie's The-End-Question-Mark type ending is one of the only ones I've seen that doesn't feel like a cheap gimmick, and actually made me think about the choices these characters would be faced with next and what they'd be likely to do and how they'd feel about it.

Detractors of this film may say it's merely a feature-length vehicle for some neato glowing retina shots, but hey, you could say the same thing about "Blade Runner". :-)

This is an interesting little horror flick from the 1970s, where the Barry Family is terrorized by a dog that is not your usual Man's Best Friend - apparently, a minion of Satan himself.

Not much surprises in this movie, but we get some good old fashion good vs. Evil action and some thrilling moments. Characters are OK, but it's not a bad horror flick to keep you entertained for an hour and a half or so.

Grade B-

I might be losing my marbles but I thoroughly enjoyed "Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell".

It's a silly story, not very suspenseful and it stays away from gore completely. Of course this is a TV movie so maybe I should have anticipated that. But you've gotta love the 70's. It was a time when talented people behind and in front of the camera accepted absurd projects and executed them with seriousness and passion.

Aside from some very bad special effects everything in "Devil Dog" is handled splendidly. Veteran actor Richard Crenna gives a very good central performance as the father who loses his family members to demonic possession thanks to Lucky, the new dog, who's an offspring of Satan.

Director Harrington does his job well, even conjuring up some eerie mood and atmosphere on occasion. Scriptwise this is decently written although I found the finale to be quite lacking.

If you're a fan of 1970's American horror film-making and keep in mind you're watching a relatively low-budget TV movie chances are you might be in for a surprise.

Skipper is dead. Skipper is a dog, the pet of the Barry family. Richard Crenna (Mike Brady...I mean Mike Barry) and Yvette Mimieux (Betty Barry, as cute as her real name as cute as her real self) are the parents and Kim Richards (Bonnie Barry...does the cuteness ever stop!) and Ike Eisenmann (Charlie Barry)--those two cute kids from the Witch Mountain films--are their children. Kim Richards is in pig tails and sailor dress no less. But why is Skipper dead? A hit and run? We know it's more than just a hit and run because just beforehand we see a Satanic ritual invoking the devil into a newly purchased pup. And who should show up just after Skipper is turned into road kill? One of the satan worshippers with a truck load of puppies...guess which one Kim Richards takes? Way before Speilberg brought horror to the suburbs in Poltergiest or there were any Nightmares on Elm Street, this made-for-TV flick dared to merge the Devil with next door. I really like seeing a wholesome TV family meet satan via a cute little puppy...I mean how cool is that? The problem is that in this case four is not enough...more kids would mean more room for deadly mayhem. The fun begins when the Barry's live-in maid Alice (oh wait a minute she has a Catholic alter in her room...oh yeah, Maria) becomes the first victim of...DEVIL DOG: HOUND OF HELL! Will Devil Dog make Mike Barry stick his hand in a lawn mower blade? Will Devil Dog make Charlie talk back to his mom? Will mom get horny? I won't tell you. My biggest complaint is that this was just a TV movie and not an R-rated feature film allowing for ample nudity in the case of Yvette Mimieux. I really would have liked to see her naked buns dipping into the pool or the cult strip her naked during one of their rituals. Now that would have been awesome.