Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell starts as happily married couple Mike (Richard Crenna) & Betty Barry (Yvette Mimieux) arrive home & find Skipper their Dog lying dead on the road outside their house, it's their ten year old daughter Bonnie's (Kim Richards) birthday & she is devastated by the news but as luck would have it an old man with a cute litter of puppies just happens to be driving by. Instantly taken by the cute puppies Bonnie & her brother Charlie (Ike Eisenmann) decide to have one & replace Skipper, mum & dad agree & the new puppy is named Lucky. However their is something wrong with Lucky, something evil & the housekeeper knew it but she dies in a mysterious accident, then the Barry's neighbour turns up dead as does one of Charlie's teachers. Mike sees his family change from a loving wife & caring children to cold Satan worshippers. Action is needed & Mike is convinced that Lucky is the spawn of Satan & that he must somehow defeat it...
This American & Canadian co-production was directed by veteran Curtis Harrington & was made for television & it originally aired on Halloween the 31st October 1978 & subsequently was picked up for release on video around the world. Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is as silly as it sounds, a Dog possessed by an evil demon who doesn't actually do that much expect wreck a family. The script takes itself far too seriously & ends up being very dry & quite dull, something as obviously as absurd as Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell should have been written with a sense of humour & an awareness of it's own stupidity which might have made it a bit more fun to watch but as it is Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is a pretty boring & underwhelming viewing experience. From the very wooden character's to the restrained exploitation elements to the general lack of purposeful story Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is a bit of a chore to sit through. No explanation is given as to why the Barry family are chosen by the Satan cultists anyway, there's no great reasoning behind the Devil Dog or what it is trying to do, sure it changes the personality of three people & kills three other's but for what purpose exactly? The script's central message is about how evil can corrupt & destroy family values, as seen in the breakdown of the Barry family & that there is nothing more important than the family but even this moral preaching comes across as laboured & ineffective. To try & make the Dog threatening there are a few unintentionally funny scenes like when it tries to hypnotise Mike into putting his own hand into lawnmower blades or when Mike catches his family holding a Satan worshipping ceremony at 3 in the morning but seems quite relaxed about it all the same! At over an hour & a half it drags too with a not worth the wait climax that amounts to nothing more than Mike putting his hand up to the Devil Dog to banish it back to hell.
There were quite a few made for television horror films during the 70's like Gargoyles (1972), The Night Stalker (1972), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), Killdozer (1974), Killer Bees (1974), Trilogy of Terror (1975) & the Stephen King adaptation Salem's Lot (1979) but surely Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell has to be the weakest one out there. As expected there's no violence or gore & when the Devil Gog does show up in it's true form it's a rather silly & sad looking monster. The effects work is pretty poor too with some terrible blue screen work. The US DVD release of Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell comes with an audio interview with it's director Harrinton who makes no attempt to hide his hatred & contempt for this saying he was just a director for hire & he considers it his worst film. There you go, who am I to argue?
Probably shot on a low budget on a tight schedule Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is typical bland made for television fare, competent I suppose but forgettable. This was the third time Kim Rchards & Ike Eisenmann had played brother & sister in a film. The acting is fine I suppose but the seriousness of the production makes the whole thing very dry & dull to watch.
Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is a bad film, a bad film featuring a demon possessed Dog that doesn't really do a lot & isn't scary or threatening at all. Not worth wasting your time on to be honest.
This American & Canadian co-production was directed by veteran Curtis Harrington & was made for television & it originally aired on Halloween the 31st October 1978 & subsequently was picked up for release on video around the world. Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is as silly as it sounds, a Dog possessed by an evil demon who doesn't actually do that much expect wreck a family. The script takes itself far too seriously & ends up being very dry & quite dull, something as obviously as absurd as Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell should have been written with a sense of humour & an awareness of it's own stupidity which might have made it a bit more fun to watch but as it is Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is a pretty boring & underwhelming viewing experience. From the very wooden character's to the restrained exploitation elements to the general lack of purposeful story Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is a bit of a chore to sit through. No explanation is given as to why the Barry family are chosen by the Satan cultists anyway, there's no great reasoning behind the Devil Dog or what it is trying to do, sure it changes the personality of three people & kills three other's but for what purpose exactly? The script's central message is about how evil can corrupt & destroy family values, as seen in the breakdown of the Barry family & that there is nothing more important than the family but even this moral preaching comes across as laboured & ineffective. To try & make the Dog threatening there are a few unintentionally funny scenes like when it tries to hypnotise Mike into putting his own hand into lawnmower blades or when Mike catches his family holding a Satan worshipping ceremony at 3 in the morning but seems quite relaxed about it all the same! At over an hour & a half it drags too with a not worth the wait climax that amounts to nothing more than Mike putting his hand up to the Devil Dog to banish it back to hell.
There were quite a few made for television horror films during the 70's like Gargoyles (1972), The Night Stalker (1972), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), Killdozer (1974), Killer Bees (1974), Trilogy of Terror (1975) & the Stephen King adaptation Salem's Lot (1979) but surely Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell has to be the weakest one out there. As expected there's no violence or gore & when the Devil Gog does show up in it's true form it's a rather silly & sad looking monster. The effects work is pretty poor too with some terrible blue screen work. The US DVD release of Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell comes with an audio interview with it's director Harrinton who makes no attempt to hide his hatred & contempt for this saying he was just a director for hire & he considers it his worst film. There you go, who am I to argue?
Probably shot on a low budget on a tight schedule Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is typical bland made for television fare, competent I suppose but forgettable. This was the third time Kim Rchards & Ike Eisenmann had played brother & sister in a film. The acting is fine I suppose but the seriousness of the production makes the whole thing very dry & dull to watch.
Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell is a bad film, a bad film featuring a demon possessed Dog that doesn't really do a lot & isn't scary or threatening at all. Not worth wasting your time on to be honest.