Written and directed by Randy Van Dyke, Like Dogs is a horror that constantly shifts expectations. The twist reveal at the end of the first act is the first of many, with the story eventually getting so convoluted that it threatens to become twisted apart. Thankfully, despite how silly the plot gets, the film was also an entertaining watch that forever kept me guessing how it would all end up. I will attempt to keep spoilers to an absolute minimum with this one.
Lisa (Annabel Barrett - Miranda Veil) is abducted off the street by masked men and wakes up wearing a collar and chained to a wall. Only provided with dog food in a bowl, and treated like an animal, she finds solace when some days later another prisoner is introduced to her room. Similarly chained up, the new prisoner, Adam (Ignacyo Matynia - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) is determined to escape, and as they make their plans, the two find themselves being drawn closer to each other.
So the first big twist isn't so much one to do with plot, but more to do with how the film plays out. The first act makes this seem like a traditional horror from the captive genre. I figured that eventually the two would escape, killing their captors as they do so. That would be the logical assumption to make. The first twist changes that somewhat with the introduction of a subplot that occurs with the jailors. It all felt very Westworld, the captives are not robots(!), I don't mean that, I just mean that as much story happens behind the scenes as with the protagonists. The two main characters in the captor scenes are Erika (Shay Denison) and George (Ryan Q. Tran - Curb Your Enthusiasm TV series), with their story being a battle of wits about how events are going to play out. To be honest, this reveal of a subplot was needed as Like Dogs felt like it wasn't really going to go anywhere. With the two protagonists chained up there wasn't much to really look at, or anything for them to really do aside from converse with each other. Matynia never really has much to work with when it comes to his character of Adam, he is used mainly as a soundboard for Lisa, the story is more focussed on her plight. Barrett does her best dealing with the many twists that threaten to sometimes drown the movie.
Being an indie horror there is never too much going on. The location appeared to be a disused veterinary hospital, it looked authentic and suitably creepy, but for the actual effects things are a bit hit and miss. The two leads are constantly drugged, I thought the effects used to simulate this looked good, I also liked the hallucinations they encounter, George in particular felt like a budget version of Scarecrow from Batman Begins with his scaring of the two. More practical effects don't fare so well, most notably a character whose head is crushed, the result appearing on screen as if a balloon had been popped. This wasn't helped that the corpse was revisited later on with a brief lingering shot of what so obviously wasn't a real head.
Story wise this becomes too convoluted for its own good, there were so many twists in quick succession that I wondered if the actors themselves had any idea what was going on. It made for an entertaining film, but one I would happily describe as pretty stupid. Also, I felt the age of the characters was a bit low, I accidentally read someone else commenting on that when I was looking at Like Dogs' IMDB page (I always try and avoid reading other people's opinions until I have written my review), but I completely agree. The average age of the characters here appears to be mid twenties, I think things would have worked better with older characters.
I did enjoy my time with Like Dogs, and I am glad it turned into something different than what it initially appeared. As much as I liked this though I can't excuse the many twists turns of what was essentially a pretty dumb plot. Like Dogs is due for release on 7th November, from High Fliers Films.
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