ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

shawnallbritten Amid the forgotten stacks of old eighties movies and television shows comes this, regrettably overlooked gem that came out of nowhere and returned to the ether almost as quickly. Alice Cooper stars as a harried, overworked rock star (what else) who inherits a rambling old mansion and a curse to go along with it. The music is what sets this film apart from others from this era, when films like The Terminator overshadowed everything in the horror field. 84 was a good year for horror movies. Cooper returns to his birthplace to record a new music video, after being gone for over twenty years. The film looks horribly dated, and is only available to view on Tubitv, which inundates its films with innumerable commercials, but the movie is uncut and fun to watch nonetheless. I remember seeing it when I was fourteen, with my good friend Vern. We watched it in the darkness of his basement, along with Slugs and Amityville Horror 2. A must watch for any fan of Alice Cooper and for rock films in general. There is lots of music involved, including some forgotten gems from the Alan Parsons Project as spooky background tunes. The film is atmospheric and frightening at times, other times campy and goofy, but always good and well worth a view or two. I place it high among my old favorites.

Michael_Elliott Monster Dog (1984)** (out of 4) Alice Cooper plays the leader of a rock group who takes his band back to his hometown to shoot a new music video. Once there the group learns that the town is under attack by some mysterious murdering dogs but could it really be a werewolf? This Spanish production is also known as Leviatan and believe it or not the thing isn't too bad if you're a fan of Cooper's. The bad thing is that Cooper didn't get to dub his own voice so you have to hear someone else talking in his place but we do get a new Cooper song, which remained unavailable until a few years ago. The movie is from director Fragasso who is best known for co-directing several Italian films with the legendary Bruno Mattei including Hell of the Living Dead, Zombi 3 and Troll 2. All of those films have a notorious reputation so it's really shocking that this movie didn't turn out worst. The actual attacks are pretty lame and the blood level is rather low but the mystery is somewhat well handled and God knows this is certainly far from the worst werewolf film. I'm not sure why this title was selected for the American release unless the buyers only watched the opening twenty-minutes and actually thought the dogs were the big story as the werewolf part doesn't kick in until later in the film. Cooper turns in a decent performance but he's always been rather entertaining when appearing in films or doing his act on stage. The supporting players are all rather weak but no worse than what we normally see in a movie like this. Again, this is no lost masterpiece but fans of Cooper's should get a few kicks out of it.

lost-in-limbo Reputation alone this should be a stinker, even with the presence of rock singer Alice Cooper and the video case artwork being quite striking. Anyhow I went in expecting just that, and sure enough it's low-barrel straight-to-video schlock, which I actually didn't mind. This shoestring Spanish werewolf horror production feels like nothing more than a Cooper vehicle, especially with the time spent on him in some music video clips ( for two previously unreleased songs entitled, "Identity Crisis" and "See Me In The Mirror."). Yep that's right; he plays a popular musician (Hell at least he's true to character!) who returns back home to shoot a music video clip, but the town is plagued by murders caused by stray dogs, or something much worse. The concept isn't too bad, but the leaden script and muddled story dispatches any chance of demonstrating some quality with cheesy daftness, padded stretches and senselessly prolonged plot inclusions. Instead on relishing in suspense, and build up (despite some minor tension and sudden twist near the end) director Claudio Fragasso goes for nightmarish moodiness, as a smoky, darkly lit atmosphere of fog, and light filtering engraves itself into the forebodingly isolated location. There's no better place to stage these things than in rundown, shadowy mansions. Although it works, the direction comes off clunky, and uneven. An eerie, stinging music score splices up well with the on-screen atmosphere, while the soundtrack is an unshakable winner. Now the special effects… yeah they're hokey. However there's a terrific head explosion and plenty of blood splatter, but when it came to the beast's make-up. It's shonky. Even the dogs in picture look bewildered when the werewolf finally makes its grand appearance. The transformation sequence is wickedly cheap, but amusing. The acting is downright disposable and flaky, but Cooper's comfortably sound turn holds your interest and the ravishing Victoria Vera is tolerable.

Coventry Yours truly is one of them sour people who's incredibly annoyed by the trend of inexperienced singers (mostly hip-hop & pop stars) getting lead roles in films just because they're immensely popular among teenage audiences. Although this mainly happens nowadays, lame directors have apparently always been recruiting music idols to make their insignificant movies look a little more appealing. No one less than shock-rocker Alice Cooper is the main attraction of this terribly inept yet hilariously amusing werewolf-vehicle, directed by the same guy who brought us the legendary bad flick "Troll 2". "Monster Dog" is not much better than "Troll 2", though. It's poorly scripted, unimaginably cheesy and almost half of the film is pure padding since there wasn't enough material to fill up a whole screenplay. Cooper's music video for "Identity Crisis" is repeated not once but twice, and there's another entire clip in the middle section of the movie. Alice Cooper stars as – surprise – a successful artist who takes his whole entourage with him for a trip to the region where he grew up in order to shoot a new music video. The sinister place brings back traumatic memories, however, as superstitious locals lynched Vince's father because they thought he was a werewolf. When mutilated corpses are discovered once again, the locals believe Vince is a werewolf too and begin to hunt down the entire group. Don't even consider watching "Monster Dog" in case you have little tolerance for lousy acting and horrible dubbing jobs. The dialogs are all irritatingly monotonous and entire cast is wooden as hell. Our good pal Claudio Fragasso (Clyde Anderson) doesn't even attempt to build up a suspenseful atmosphere, but at least there's some blood and delightfully phony werewolf-mutations to enjoy. The make-up effects are laughable and about the opposite of shocking, but hey, at least they provide the movie with a handful of memorable shlock-sequences, like the shotgun-head kill. Some of the interior settings as well as the fog-enshrouded landscapes look effectively eerie, but they're largely ignored in favor of the hip music sequences. "Monster Dog" is recommended to either fans of brainless & campy 80's horror, or die-hard admirers of Alice Cooper. This last group is probably responsible for the rather big number of 10/10 ratings.