Rottweiler

A fugitive escapes from a Spanish prison and is tracked down by a robot dog in the distant future. Oh, Brian Yuzna, why did you make this awful, awful movie? In general, I like the films he makes through his production company, Fantastic Factory. Faust, Dagon, and Beyond Re-Animator were fun, well-made horror movies. Hey, even Arachnid had its moments. But this…ouch, this was absolutely unwatchable. To start, it was boring as hell. The action was uninteresting and bland, the acting was often very poor, and the visual effects were crappy. Then of course you have our "hero" running around nude for about five minutes of screen time and one of the most tasteless sex scenes I've ever seen (I actually felt sick to my stomach during it), not to mention that even the gore is badly done and uninspired. To be fair, Yuzna gives the film a pretty decent look via desolate Spanish locations and the effects on the robot dog (From Vincent Gaustini, who was also responsible for the effects in Dogma, Requiem for a Dream and the made-for-cable adaptation of Stephen King's Thinner) weren't bad at times. Oh, and the opening title sequence was actually quite cool and creative. These three pros, unfortunately, do absolutely nothing to make the film more watchable. It's painful, terrible, and all-around bad.

Just don't see it.

1.5/10.

The plot synopsis of this film does not actually match the film. The narrative is all jumbled around in time and loaded down with long post dubbed dialog. Any excitement is lost in confusing flashbacks and the mentioned long long sequence of the "on the run" male lead trotting around naked.

Brian Yuzna knows how to assemble the elements to make a horror film but when he directs himself he has showed before and shows again he doesn't know how to do much with those elements. There is also the odd misplaced sexual perverse element that stops the movie dead in it's tracks, this time that is the silly nude hero sequence.

Paul Naschy, Spainish horror icon actor, doesn't have much to do here, but the overall level of professionalism doesn't make his appearance the embarrassment that his two recent made in America films were. Then again his own Rojo Sangre makes this film look even worse.

Behind the scenes footage reveals many better angles than Yuzna chose to use. Also the director of photography says he likes to use lots of big lights. This certainly shows in the film, one sequence early one looks like it was shot during the day time but then proves to be a night scene. This is only the beginning of the confusion this movie generates.

Can't they make a straight forward chase/horror film? Well whatever they are trying to make here they couldn't make that film either.

FX are pretty bad overall, dog's robo makeup mostly looks silly as do the various puppet dogs and CG Terminator rip off dog. Much of the movie is devoted to padded dialog scenes. Only visual touches that work are a couple of nice crane shots, one right near the end of the film.

Sometimes the film is bad/funny but not enough of the time to overcome the boredom and confusion of the flashback structure and stiff re-dubbed actors. The reaction shot of the chicken though is fabulous. That chicken could teach the rest of the cast a thing or two about acting. All in all a loser in all ways. The film was nearly booed off the screen when it premiered at the Belguim horror festival.

Brian Yuzna's directorial career started off well with the innovative and freaky Society, followed by a serviceable sequel to Re-animator and the excellent Return of the Living Dead III; but since setting up his own production company, Fantastic Factory, in Spain, Yuzna's output has been surprisingly bad, with Rottweiler being the biggest dog of them all.

Set in the near future, the film sees a risk-taking young couple, Dante and Ula (William Miller and Irene Montalà) caught by the authorities as they play a game called 'infiltration', which calls for them to try and illegally enter a country without papers. Dante is sent to a high security prison, but is soon presented with an opportunity to escape into the surrounding wilderness, where he finds himself relentlessly pursued by a savage, cyborg tracker dog.

Admittedly, the above synopsis sounds like it could shape up to be a quality piece of sci-fi/horror entertainment—kinda like Westworld crossed with Cujo—but that is only half the story, and how the plot develops after Dante's prison break is simply insane.

However, since the sheer unpredictability of the narrative is the one of the only enjoyable aspects of the film (the other main 'positive' being the gore), I'm not going to spoil things by revealing too much, suffice to say that you should prepare yourself for some unbelievably poorly executed action, including a silly chase sequence involving numerous shots of Dante's naked ass, the least harrowing rape scene in movie history, the hilarious sight of the dog disposing of a gun (twice), and a priceless shot of a surprised chicken that is easily the best moment in the whole damn mess (the bird certainly gives a more convincing performance than the rest of the cast).

Seriously, I don't see why everyone hates this movie. It's not THAT bad.

I felt the choice of actors was actually quite nice, for a low budget film starring a bunch of little known Spanish actors. There were several nice touches in the film that I enjoyed. For example, the main character slowly goes completely insane through out the movie, and I loved it. As he watches more and more people butchered by the rather well down robotic dog, he continues to decend deeper and deeper into insanity, with it finally culminating in his visions of his dead girlfriend speaking to him, even though she's been dead for a year.

I also felt the dog was well done, it didn't look that bad either... I must admit one last thing, I saw the movie on the Sci-Fi channel, so I didn't have to deal with the awkward nudity scenes, and the main character remained fully clothed throughout the movie.

As for the plot, yes, it was a bit lacking, but what do you expect? It was a movie about a killer, robotic dog. Tell me any movie where you have altered dogs as killers that was actually a success? And after having watched this movie after some of the Watchers flicks, you'll appreciate this movie so much more.

All in all, when compared to the other horror movie/slasher flicks of the twenty-first century, this really wasn't that bad. However, if you came into this movie thinking it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread, you will be sorely disappointed. Come into it with lowered expectations, and you'll be well satisfied.

And remember, it was better than "Watchers"...

Spain's Fantastic Factory strikes again with this Brian Yuzna (Beyond Reanimator) directed hokum. Dante and Ula are playing infiltration (apparently a rich boy's game of sneaking into third world countries) and when it goes horribly wrong they are caught by the authorities and separated. When Dante makes a daring escape and then finds himself being hunted by the titular title character which is now more Terminator than dog. It eats everything. It destroys everything and it can't be stopped. How will poor Dante find his beloved Ula with the Doginator on his trail? Well where shall I begin? The script is pretty ratty even for low budget fare. Giant leaps in logic and plot inconsistencies are plenty in this tale. Unnecessary flashback sequences try to unlock or more correctly infer a twist in the ending but it fails to generate anything to sustain you that far. Things just don't jell in the end. The acting by the no name cast of Spanish actors is pretty straight as one would guess with a script that requires the lead to get attacked, shoot a shotgun, have sex with the local bimbette (while she holds a gun on him no less) and wander the desert starkers for 25 minutes you can't expect much and you end up rooting for the dog. The dog effects however are the only bright spot of the film as the kills can be pretty bloody and cool and the animatronic dog was actually pretty spiffy. Heck, the dog gives the only worthy performance here.