Dogs of Hell

DOGS OF HELL is about a top secret military project involving the killer canines of the title. These ruthless Rottweilers have surgical implants, making them ferocious fuzzballs of doom.

Oh no!

They're accidentally unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace!

Starring intergalactic omni-star, Earl Owensby as Sheriff Hank Willis, this is another low-low-budget schlocker from the 1980's. As such, it must hold some sort of record, considering that every character in it is an annoying idiot. Ranging from squeaky dweebs, to yowling yahoos, the denizens of the fictional town are all equally insufferable!

Thankfully, many of them end up as dog chow.

Of particular interest are the "wilderness photoshoot gone awry" and the obligatory "mud wrestling" sequences.

Ludicrous to the extreme, this could / should have been a masterwork of slack-jawed insanity. Unfortunately, it loses points for its long stretches of trance-inducing dullness. To be fair, it's almost saved by the southern-fried, musical soundtrack, bringing to mind a sort of Lynyrd Skynyrd / Hee Haw hybrid.

The perfect movie for de-wrinkling one's brain...

An unbelievably bad effort by independent producer Earl Owensby, not just for the fact it rips off "The Pack" and "Dogs". It's unbelievable in its ineptness, starting with photography so poor (especially during the night sequences) that the movie looks like it was shot in 8 MM. The attack sequences are very lazy - mostly we just HEAR the attacks instead of seeing them, and when we DO see them, it's only for a split second. We do see the aftermath of the attacks, though the poor makeup jobs aren't any compensation. The main problem with the movie is that it's simply BORING for the most part, devoting most of the running time to showing these country folk talking to each other and going around the area. I can't see ANY reason why this could be of interest to anyone, even if someone happened to star or work on the movie. If you want to see a killer dog movie, see "The Pack". Heck, even see "Dogs" over this; though it's not very good, it's a masterpiece next to "Dogs Of Hell"!

Dogs of Hell (1983)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The evil U.S. government have created Rottweilers that are trained to attack and kill humans. A truckload of them are going through a small town when the truck crashes and sends the dogs on a killing spree, which has Sheriff Hank Willis (Earl Owensby) having to take control.

This here was the first of six pictures that Owensby would produce in 3D but to my knowledge there has never been a home video of this version. Most copies out there are from the video and are full screen and don't look the greatest so it's hard to judge the effects obviously but at the same time there were very few things that "jumped" at the screen outside an early scene involving a dart.

As far as the rest of the movie goes, it's really no different than films like THE PACK or DOGS. This one here contains a certain regional atmosphere, which is a plus and it's always fun seeing that charm of Owensby but outside of this there's really not too much here to recommend. The biggest problem is that the film has the majority of the attacks off the screen so we get the cheap effect of a dog growling and then the aftermath of the attack.

DOGS OF HELL has a certain low-budget appeal but there's just not enough here to make it interesting enough to recommend. That is unless you're a fan of Owensby.

This film must be seen in the original widescreen 3-D process; as the excellent use of stereoscopic space is its only virtue. If you like cheesy horror flicks, you'll likely appreciate it a bit more. Earl is no actor, but he's fun in this silly little movie.

After seeing COMIN' AT YA! rake in the cash in 1981, Earl got the idea (as did many a producer at the time) that 3-D would bring attention to his low budget southern flicks and decided to shoot everything that way! This was the first of SIX 3-D movies made by Earl Owensby in the 1980's. The others were TALES OF THE THIRD DIMENSION, CHAIN GANG, HIT THE ROAD RUNNING, HYPERSPACE, and HOT HEIR (aka GREAT BALLOON CHASE).

Okay, I give up. It really is impossible to make a good killer dog movie. This is a prime example of what not to do. Don't set the movie in Hickville, don't cast a bunch of real hicks, and don't take ten years to get to the dog action. The title was so promising: Dogs of Hell!! I was more than ready for some hell hound horror. You do get a small dose of that, it's just not what you want. Chick screams then gets covered in blood. You hear the dog panting but you never see him. The camera stays in the dogs POV. The Rottweilers and the humans are never onscreen at the same time. Dogs of Hell is a mega-low budget movie and is not worth your time. This dog just has no bite.

"They were perfectly trained for one task: Manslaughter!"