Director: Jake West (Evil Aliens)
Writers: Dan Schaffer
Producers: Michael Loveday, Terry Stone
Starring: Danny Dyer, Noel Clarke, Stephen Graham
MPAA Rating: UK: 15
Running time: 89 min.

(2.5/5)

I remember coming out and seeing Simon Says at Toronto After Dark back in 2007. In his introduction to the film, festival Director Adam Lopez talked about how you will hate the characters and will cheer when they are killed. I did not cheer and did not enjoy the movie. On the first screening this Saturday at TADFF Adam once again talked about the British blokes and how you will cheer when they are killed in Doghouse. While, I enjoyed Doghousemuch more than Simon Says as it is a much better movie I still did not find myself cheering when the men were killed.

Doghouse tells the story of a group of guys who head off to a village to party it up after one of them breaks up with his wife. When they get to the village the find out that first it is not the party town that they thought it would be and that all of the men have been killed by women who have been turned into blood thirsty zombies. They end up being stuck in the village and try to find a way out.

I would really have to say that I have two problems with Doghouse. First the humor falls flat several times. I am not the biggest fan of comedies as I feel that too much of comedy in many movies is just not smart. I love smart humor but get very little movies where the comedic moments are telegraphed a mile in advance and not in a good way. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh as I did chuckle and laugh at some of the jokes but jokes such as having a character where a bullseye are just too obvious for my tastes. Similarly several of the female zombie characters were just too much of a charicature to be to my liking. Sure having the witch character swinging a sword after the characters could be fun but putting the eyepatch on her and having her dressed up as much as she was just took the joke to far. I really think that I wanted the world to be a bit more real and the joke to work better.

Secondly, as I said I did not cheer when it came to the kills as I feel they killed the wrong characters and that the whole revelation of the men just fell flat. I can understand not wanting to kill of your biggest stars but they were also the biggest jerks and should have been the ones to bite it. At the end of the movies it becomes completely obvious that the surviving characters were idiots before and are still idiots the movie feels like a let down.

I know I’ve sounded harsh with the review. When I came out of the theatre I will admit that I had a fairly good time. There was enough small bits that I did enjoy that I was not annoyed at the movie it is only upon reflecting on the film more that my opinion dropped. While I wouldn’t really recommend Doghouse to anyone I wouldn’t out right tell them its a bad movie. I really just is a mediocre horror comedy that if I was bored one afternoon and hadn’t seen it would watch it while doing other stuff.