The Plague Dogs (1982)

I last posted about the film Watership Down, which, while having its share of frightening moments, was still ultimately a grand adventure story, not horror. But The Plague Dogs (1982, Nepenthe Productions), also based on a novel by Richard Adams, is another matter entirely...a dark, downward spiral of a story, with heavy themes and a disturbing plot that is certainly not appropriate for young children.

From the very first scene there is no doubt that we're entering grim territory. The story begins in an animal research facility that is nothing short of a chamber of horrors. A mongrel dog, Rowf, is being subjected to a cruel experiment where he is repeatedly drowned and revived.

Later we meet his friend, a terrier named Snitter, whose bandaged head betrays that he's been the subject of some kind of brain operation. A gate left carelessly unlatched provides the dogs a chance at escape, but first they must pass through the various laboratories.

Once free of the lab, they must survive in a nightmarish wilderness that at times seems almost otherworldly.

Snitter's operation has rendered him schizophrenic (the animals are anthropomorphic), and he sometimes finds himself "inside of his head", confusing his actual surroundings with memories of happier times, as when he perceives this warehouse as being a previous master's home.

Hungry and desperate, the dogs make a conscious decision to become "wild animals", and kill a sheep to survive.

We never really believe the dogs have a chance of escape or survival--they just seem doomed from the outset, merely biding time until their inevitable capture or death.

When we find out that the lab where the dogs escaped from was doing some work with the bubonic plague, and there is fear that Snitter and Rowf may have become contaminated, any hope of escape is lost. The military is unleashed to hunt them down.

Snitter has previously described the post-operation irritation in his head as being like large flies buzzing, and the sight and sound of the helicopter convinces him these flies have finally escaped from inside his brain and are hunting them.

In a cruel irony, they find themselves trapped against the sea. Snitter, convinced there is a nearby island, swims for it, but Rowf's experiences in the lab's drowning pool make this a much less inviting avenue...

Like Watership Down, The Plague Dogs is an adequate, if greatly amended adaptation of the superior, much longer novel on which its based. The book can be bit daunting. Not only is it quite long at 480 pages, but much of the dialogue is written in a dialect that requires a glossary to decipher (for example, "Dinna fash yersel" translates to "don't upset yourself.") But I found it worth the trouble.

Buy the book here. Buy the DVD here.

Happy. Bunny. Blood.

I must have been in 1st or 2nd grade when I first saw Watership Down (1978, Nepenthe Productions) when it aired on television. It would be many, many years later before I finally got around to reading the novel by Richard Adams, but it was the lingering memories of those powerful, frightening images from that single television viewing that prompted me to do it.

Images such as these. Here, the mystic rabbit Fiver has an apocalyptic vision. "The field..it's covered with blood!"

Later, one of the larger rabbits, Big Wig, is caught in a snare. The others must act quickly if they are to save him, but they aren't sure what to do.

These disturbing images leave no doubt as to the seriousness of Big Wig's predicament.

In a horrific flashback, Holly, a rabbit that had stayed behind in the doomed warren but managed to escape, describes how their holes were filled in and the tunnels choked with the bodies of desperate rabbits.

This gives way to a subjective, dream-like vision of the construction vehicles violating the land.

We meet the monstrous chief rabbit General Wound-Wort, the cruel and ruthless leader of a neighboring warren, who gets into a vicious fight with Big Wig.

Wound-Wort meets an appropriately bloody end in the jaws of this dog...

And finally, I'll never forget this chilling scene set years later, where our protagonist, Hazel, now old and near the end of his life, is approached by the Black Rabbit, death, who convinces him to lay down and finally die.

Every so often, I'll browse the customer reviews at Amazon.com just to see what people have to say about this movie or that. Apparently there are some...uh, passionate folks out there who think a children's movie shouldn't contain anything scary, sad, violent or thought-provoking, and actually get quite mad about it if their expectations are defied. You'll find folks like these leaving angry 1-star reviews for classics like Old Yeller, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and yes, even Watership Down. One reviewer posted a tirade so hysterical it actually cracked me up.

From reviewer John K. Fisher, posted October 24, 2001:

Let me explain something. This movie is the scariest damn movie ever. Bunnies trying to claw each other's eyes out is not cool. happy bunny blood, people. Am I the only one horrified by this? HAPPY. BUNNY. BLOOD. To whoever was behind this: What the hell is wrong with you? Music by Art Garfunkel.

I don't know if this guy is just a troll looking for a reaction or a sincere nutball, but either way its a funny read.