FREAKDOG, like jobbing director Paddy Breathnach’s last horror film, SHROOMS, is a competent, good-looking, slick product let down by mediocre material and all too obvious attempts to appeal to the worldwide (read : American) market. In this case, the latter is even more apparent – this British movie, shot entirely in Ireland, sees a largely home-grown cast unconvincingly attempting to convince us that we’re really watching a U.S. horror flick. Has no one learned from the first two HELLRAISER movies?
The set-up is a well-worn medley of clichés from both 80’s slasher movies and 80’s body-jumping possession flicks. Retarded, persecuted autistic Andrew Lee Potts is humiliated by a group of med students from the hospital in which he works as a lowly janitor. Their cruel shenanigans give him a one way ticket to coma-land and from there the movie segues into a very derivative variation on coma-patient-orchestrates-rampage movies like PATRICK, PSYCHIC KILLER, APPOINTMENT WITH FEAR, et al. Guilt-ridden hottie Arielle Kebbel tries to nurse him back to health with an experimental drug concoction but only succeeds in giving him the out-of-body power to psychically avenge his state by possessing those responsible. FREAKDOG makers! THE FIRST POWER and SHOCKER called, they want their premise back!
As with SHROOMS, this is a polished production that drowns in clichés – including a corny fade-out “shock” that would have seemed predictable and hackneyed even back in 1981. The plot unfolds in a blah, by-the-numbers fashion, with the script struggling to sustain tension as it lumbers from one possession & kill to the next. Worse still is a bog standard subplot in which Kebbel struggles to convince a bunch of unconvincing, bemused cops of the outlandish truth while becoming (yawn) a suspect herself.
Kebbel is appealing and easy on the eye, but the film’s principal draw is its generous dose of sadism and gore. The back story for the eponymous outcast is suitably nasty, and his vengeance is, at least, enjoyably brutal : worth staying awake for are a bloody throat stabbing, some icky broken-bottle self mutilation and a bravura acid-poured-down-victim’s-throat set piece.
These scenes have a charge and impact of sorts, but the movie surrounding them really could have used more surprises, scares and fresh ideas.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
