2009 (UK)
Contains
mild spoilers.
I've seen Doghouse
described as a creatively bankrupt Shaun of the Dead for the British lads
magazine reading audience and undeniably misogynistic, pitting, when it comes
down to it, six foul mouthed, uncouth beer swilling guys against a ravenous
horde of mindless zombirds (not my word), all presented as comical one
dimensional stocking wearing parodies of characters you'd expect to see on a primary school wall; and there's certainly some merit to the criticisms. I do think though that
dismissing the film in this way so quickly, is perhaps all a bit too easy
and might even be actually kind of missing the point and even the joke.
Vince (Stephen
Graham) is having a rough time of it, what with his divorce and all, so his mates,
all dealing with their own relationship struggles have arranged for
a weekend get-away to the small rural village of Moodley where the beer runs
free and the women allegedly out number the men 4 to 1. Falling out with their
significant others and meeting up at a local London pub to start proceedings
with a lager or seven, director Jake West has captured British lad culture of
the thirty something's painfully and clumsily transitioning from single
carefree boys to grown men perfectly. They arrive full of exaggerated
camaraderie and a macho facade hiding their real insecurities
and pains, and the film is just as much a character journey with the lads
rediscovering the confidence and masculinity of their lost youth, as it a good old fashioned low brow
action zombie one. Their misogyny is exaggerated and a show; the film really a satirical
jab at a demasculinised young British generation attempting to be warriors
again.
Arriving at the
village the lads soon come to realise two things. One, Mikey's (Noel Clarke)
memories of the place are quite a way off with Moodley being quite the small,
run down little place with little to offer them and two, they might actually be
in a lot of trouble. You see, the villages lady folk have all been exposed to a
biological agent that has turned them into rabid, man hating cannibals.
Yes, they're not
zombies. They may look foul, exaggerated evil dead-esque and zombie like, and
they may stagger about spasmodically, grunting and groaning, but they're very
much alive and infected. Looking for a test site, the military chose the
isolated rural hamlet, put in a for-ladies-ears-only high pitched
immobilisation speaker safety system, which failed, and spiked the washing
powder. The result? A bit of an implausible confusing plot full of
inconsistencies, and a lot of men being eaten.
If anything I
actually enjoyed the build up to the lads arrival, and the
between action banter a bit more than the quite derivative action itself. Doghouse is a true show case of British
talent. As well as Vince and Mikey, Neil (Danny Dyer), Graham (Emil Marwa), Matt (Lee Ingleby),
Patrick (Keith-Lee Castle) and Banksy (Neil Maskell) are all fine character
actors and their exchanges are constantly natural, witty and well delivered. All the
characters feel authentic and the way in which they deal with the horror; by
screaming, panicking and running away, is comically real and what makes the
film. The action sequences themselves, while full of great and excessive blood
and gore are perhaps a little flat and overdrawn with the same zombirds doing
the same tricks a few too many times. There are moments of originality and some
interesting ideas but the main action when the lads are desperately looking for
ideas and scrambling from one shelter to the next all feels a bit contrived and
seen it all before. I'm not saying it's not entertaining; it's just you could easily
get yourself another beer without pausing and not really feel like you were
missing anything.
It's another
infected like The Crazies experience. Of late I've started to relax and really
question my early assumptions about what it means to be a zombie and while I
agree there needs to be a little deadness to proceedings, it's how this
deadness manifests itself that's got me pontificating. The ladies are
clearly no longer self-aware, or cognisant and are driven by a primal
insatiable hunger; their humanity, their self, if you want to call it that, is
dead. They're mindless rabid automatons, albeit with a pulse. They're not
zombies as Romero defined it but in the grand scale of things, especially if we
look to include old Haitian voodoo slaves, they maybe are. I'll leave this
debate here for now but I will say the make-up and prosthetic team have done a
fantastic job meeting the design goal of having thirty odd distinctly
identifiable weapon wielding gruesome monstrosities and whether it's the
horrific scissor snipping hairdresser (Emily Booth) or the large and gratuitous
Bubbles (Annie Vanders) they play their evil caricatures with menace, exuberence and
authenticity.
It's a clever and ironic stab at lad culture
and the demasculinisation of the British man, and a well intentioned authentic
attempt at a gore laced zombie film in the evil dead tradition, or it's
misogynistic load of old wank; it all depends on your perspective. Either way,
it just about gets the comedy, horror, action mix right and if you're happy to
not think too hard about anything that's happening there's a fun, competent, albeit
juvenile zombie film here and plenty of laughs. One to be enjoyed with a beer, rather than a fine
cognac or full bodied Bordeaux in hand; a blood drenched battle of the sexes
with a Demons meets Shaun of the Dead vibe it's recommended, 6/10.
Steven@WTD.
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