Monster Dog (1984)

If you want to have some fine cheese, go to your local delicatessen and get your fix. I you want some OK cheese, just relax and let Monster Dog do the work for you. I have no idea who popular Alice Cooper was in 1984, but somehow he felt he just needed to star in a movie directed and written by the legendary shlockmeister Claudio Fragasso, and even put some of his songs in it. For conservative horror- and Alice Cooper-fans this is probably a terrible thing, but for us who appreciates a good slice of Italian camp-o-rama, this is a highlight!

Mr Cooper is Vince Raven, “the world’s hottest rock ‘n’ roll star” who goes together with his crew and entourage to his old hometown to shoot a new, cool music video. Of course strange things starts to happen at once, for example the pack of wild dogs running around terrorizing the villagers. We also learn that Vince’s father was killed by the rednecks, mistaken for being a werewolf! Talk about kinder trauma! Nothing really happens, except some dream-sequences, some kills and a long shoot-out with the rednecks until we understand that someone we know very well is a… WEREWOLF (or Monster Dog as the title suggests)!

The movie starts with a very silly music video, and from there it just gets better and better. Everything is unclear, people are doing unnatural stuff, has amazing dialogues about nothing and in-between is some quite good tracks by Cooper. It’s very eighties with smoke machine, strong colours and even more colourful characters. The old man of warning showing up all the time is crazier than ever and getting more and more bloody for each time.

After more than half of the movie a gang of rednecks show up to lynch Vincent and his crew, and suddenly it becomes more of a western movie than anything else, and ends in a nice and cheap gore-scene when one of the baddies is getting the top of his head shot off in graphic fashion! Most of the other gore is just the aftermath after kills, and nothing else. Maybe it’s cut, I have no idea. I own the UK DVD which is fullscreen, VHS-quality – but the head-shot are there and is obviously uncut. Maybe someone can enlighten me about the gore-status in Monster Dog? Amazingly enough this was also broadcasted in HD on some US channel, in very good quality too. I need to download that version to see how it looks, because I would love a DVD or blu-ray in better quality.

Be also prepared for a very crappy transformation-scene. But at least they tried, which is half the idea with a movie like this. And by the way, who is Lou, the named mentioned on the poster?

Monster Dog is absurdly cheesy, and another of Claudio Fragassos eternal classics. Get it, or Vince Raven will eat you! (Oops, was that a spoiler?)