Dog House Review

Title: DogHouse
Format: DVD
Year: 2009
Label: Sony Pictures


I had high hopes for this movie, it stars some of my favourite UK actors including Danny Dyer (The Business) Stephen Graham (Snatch) and Noel Clarke (Dr Who), and maybe that was the problem. If this was a standard movie with a bunch of unknown actors I think I would have found it slightly more enjoyable, however with the calibre of actors cast in the film I found myself both waiting for and wanting more..It never materialised.

The plot is taken from any standard horror movie (group of people in middle of nowhere get attacked) and that in itself was fine. I could even over look the awful product placement by a certain razor company... that got repeated often.... certainly not the best a man could get. The monsters in this film are infected, flesh eating females which are cliché stereotypes, not scary in the slightest.... I know this film is supposed to be tongue in cheek but I still expected to be a taken back a little at some point in this ‘horror’ film, sadly I wasn’t. 

One of my main issues in this movie was that as the viewer I never felt any empathy or connection with the characters or situation they were in. I genuinely hoped that I could just watch this film as a fan of low budget home grown movies however I soon became distracted and lost all interest in the story.

The acting for the most part was sub-par; the only exception to this was Noel

Clarke who in my opinion stood out above the more experienced film actors. It seemed both Danny Dyer and Stephen Graham were treading water and doing the bare minimum. Maybe they were restricted by the poor dialog or felt they were constrained by the nonexistent character development, either way it just didn’t work.

The audio started so badly during the early pub scene that I changed the audio settings on my TV hoping that was the problem, unfortunately it wasn’t. To me it sounded as though the actors were speaking from under an inch of water, the sound came across as dull and muffled. To be fair the audio did pick up as the movie progressed and after 20 minutes I had forgotten there was an issue.

This movie was never expected to win a BAFTA or compete with true horror movies, this was always going to be the kind of film you watch with mates after a few beers and in that light I think it just barely works... emphasis on just.

If you don’t expect a decent story line, originality, or scares then you won’t be disappointed.


UK films Rating: 4/10 – Mildly entertaining
Release Rating: 7/10 -  Great Transfer, extras include: Making of, Deleted Scenes and Blooper Reel
Did Jesmon like it? NO