The Dogman Triangle: Werewolves in the Lone Star State is the latest documentary to come from Small Town Monsters (Momo: The Missouri Monster). Having seen plenty of these now I know what to expect, and this did follow a familiar format. Directed by Seth Breedlove (Terror in the Skies), this one was co-hosted by independent researcher, Shannon LeGro (On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky) and author, Aaron Deese, with the documentary itself based on the book of the same name that Deese had written.
The idea of 'the dogman triangle' was created by Deese, and is basically a huge triangular area he has mapped onto Texas, from which there have been many sightings of 'dogmen'; upright walking dog or wolf creatures. Rather than the sightings being confined to within the triangular area, the sightings all seem to take place around the three points of the triangle. With 'werewolves' in the title, I expected that would take up much of the documentary, but aside from briefly mentioning about a dogman legend of a shaman who could transform into a creature, this mostly discusses the possible cryptoid in terms of it permanently being an animal like creature.
The usual format is used of a handful of people being interviewed about their encounters and research into the beast. These take the form of animated recreations, typically being made up of basic still images of the creature. At an hour and ten minutes long, this still felt at times like it was covering similar ground. The encounters while numerous, all felt kind of similar, and there was never much physical proof ever really captured. You have one very blurry piece of recorded footage, and an admittedly creepy sounding howl recorded, and that is about it. The evidence more depends you believing the people who are retelling their stories, and as always, they sure do seem to believe what they are saying. With many of the sightings taking place in the dead of night, or at glimpsed creatures from a fair distance away, it is easy to say these could have been mistaken sightings. Coming in as an outsider on the subject, LeGro takes a more skeptical stance than hosts usually do, though I got the impression she still wanted to believe what she was hearing.
The documentary is split into around three chapters, each one centered on the area around one of the three points. You get a history of when dogmen were first spotted, newspaper headlines from the mid 20th Century, and discussions of where the idea may have first originated from, such as European settlers bringing the stories across, and old Native American legends. The historical records of these dogmen were more exciting, but of course, being older, they are harder to verify.
While there didn't seem to be too much variation with the eye witness descriptions, this was still presented just as interestingly as Small Town Monsters docs always are. I loved the prologue sequence that was set out like an old tourist information video on wild animals that can be encountered in Texas, that was a fun way to begin things. I wasn't quite sure on the whole style this went for however, there was a washed out look that gave the footage throughout a dated seventies style film quality, I felt that even just for the interviews, this would have benefitted by given a more modern day quality in the footage. Still, an interesting topic for sure, with a lot of information contained within. The Dogman Triangle: Werewolves in the Lone Star State debuted on major streaming platforms from June 27th, from 1091 Pictures.
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