A Living Dog

It's hard to write a review for this movie because it's hard to figure out why A Living Dog works as well as it does. One minor question that I haven't yet sorted out is why it's called "A Living Dog." There is a living dog who makes a very brief appearance in silhouette only but I guess that the movie name has additional meaning. I think one thing that is very interesting is that movie transcends the cliches it references and employs: the "Terminator Machines" and the apocalypse details are referenced with brief "yada yada yada" nods. We are given just enough info to "get the lowdown". So the movie ultimately transcends it's own plot, doesn't get caught up in it's own details. It actually has a kinship in my humble opinion with The Verdict (1982) directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Paul Newman. The male protagonist is a kind of silent Frank Galvin character reciting to himself "There are no other cases, this is the case."

This is storyline badly written, should have never made it to production. I can honestly tell from the very beginning the intro just how bad the sci-fi movie with me. I can see how they try to bring some attention to detail but it was complete failure. The actress / actors was always looking around at nothing and then when something comes it's still nothing.

I appreciate and support newb filmmakers (of which they aren't entirely new), even more when their film is independently funded, but there's no excuse for such long dragged out nonsense in the lazy writing.

It was just once scene after the other of the exact same nonsense - running, hiding, laser rays, repeat. The normally just-right 94 min runtime felt like almost 3 hours with the long dragged out and mostly unnecessary scenes, and the slow pacing. Aside from this story being told so many times before - all much better, there was just way too much filler and very little substance. Had this been chopped down to a 15 min or so short film, it would've shined, and made the dialogue-less 94 min runtime more bearable. I get that the machines have great hearing, but I doubt it was better than the aliens in "A Quiet Place", so being in a basement with nothing in sight for miles and zero dialogue, is lazy writing imo. Giving the viewer all this filler and expecting them to do all your work to figure out what's going on, in place of dialogue, is writing I'd expect from a 5th grade drama class. Never mind the cringeworthy plot and technical issues. Again, lack of funding is no excuse for lazy and sloppy writing.

What this film did have going for it, was an great score and excellent cinematography. The aerial views were all on point, but the irrelevant sudden shots of flower, bugs on the ground, etc, was just amateur directing and the cherry on top for the wasted whipped cream filler. The "machines" looked decent on the screen for the most part, but those CGI explosions and laser beams were a laughable 1970's quality. Even the editing (was there any?) was horrible. So never mind the current four reviews of 7, 8, 9 and 10/10 (hmm, I see a pattern), this is a very generous 5/10 from me.

Slow but a great post apocalyptic film to watch if you're deaf or hearing impaired as there's no vocal script. Just imagine tense music and sound effects throughout.

A shaky, earthy, rough and true piece of Indie-cinema - with one condition: You have to like giant killer robots! ;)