Monster Dog (1984)

CONTAINS SPOILERS. 

Okay... Not sure about anyone else but when I see a poster like this one, I can be pretty much assured that I will love the movie it's advertising. Aside from the poster, two facts about this movie had me instantly: not only does this movie star Alice Cooper as a werewolf, but it was directed by the same guy who directed Troll 2. How can anyone refuse?

This movie was a foreign production and all dialog was dubbed after filming, so poor Alice Cooper doesn't even speak with his own voice. Instead, we have one of the hammiest voice actors you'll ever hear doing the honours, adding to the overall weirdness and general hilarity of Monster Dog. Given that Alice's only other acting job in the 80s was as a mute homeless guy in Prince Of Darkness, he can't have been too happy with his agent's attempts to break him into Hollywood. Oh well, at least he got to speak in Wayne's World.

Within 30 seconds of this movie starting, I knew it was going to be amazing. Alice plays a rock star named Vince Raven, and the opening scene is a music video for his latest tune, "Identity Crisis". I can't even describe how amazing this is, but it is on par with Alice's video for "He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)" from the Friday 13th Part 6 soundtrack.

Alice isn't best pleased with the results (I can't imagine why) so he decides to shoot his next video in his hometown which a bunch of friends. Upon arriving at his hometown, our heroes are told that a pack of evil dogs are murdering people all over the shop, including the caretaker of Alice's old home, Jos. Thing is, the murderous dogs in this movie are fairly placid and actually pretty cute. There's no way the dog on the right in this pic is hurting anyone.

As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that Alice is himself cursed by the mark of the werewolf, passed on by his father years before, and the "vicious" dogs are in fact his unholy minions. Alice's friends don't want to believe it, but unfortunately for them Alice isn't too selective when it comes to his victims once the wolf genes kick in. One aspect of this movie that deserves special attention is the make-up, which is... Not so hot. This is a werewolf, by the way.

Oddly, an hour or so in the movie turns into a kind of western where a lynch mob who murdered Alice's werewolf father come round to finish the job and kill Alice. He's not going easily though, and things get pretty badass as Alice picks off the mob one by one with a shotgun while wearing some unfeasibly tight leather pants. If anyone can pull that it off, it's Alice Cooper. Look at those brains fly.

Unfortunately, things can't stay rosy forever and Alice's girlfriend is forced to kill him. The final few minutes of this film are absolutely amazing and I'm seriously impressed that someone uploaded them to youtube. I can't even do this scene justice so I'll just let the vid do the talking. I will say however that Sandra's hysterical laugh/cry at the end of this video is possibly the finest acting I've ever seen.




And there you have it. In a final bizarre turn, the video from the start of the film is shown again in it's entirety, peppered with clips from throughout the movie, presumably in case you've somehow forgotten what you've just seen (or tried to forget).

This movie has basically everything I could ever want, plus more. If you can track it down, I would highly recommend a viewing. Did I mention it has Alice Cooper as a werewolf?! Get on it.