Doghouse
Director: Jake West
Stars: Danny Dyer, Noel Clarke, Emil Marwa
Review by Brian M. Sammons

Zombies are everywhere, or at least they seem to be in the world of horror books and movies. Everyone seems to want to put their own stamp on the much loved cavorting corpses, but rarely do such re-imaginings work. Rarer still does the zombie comedy (or zomedy) work. Sure there have been notable exceptions like Shaun Of The Dead and Zombieland, but more often than not you get Zombies Of Mass Destruction or Return Of The Living Dead Part 2.

Thankfully this British import is both unique and laugh out loud funny. It’s also not very PC, and I loved it all the more for that. So get a bunch of your best buddies, or blokes, together, crack open some brews, eat lots of seared, dead animals, and fart whenever the hell you want, because this movie both celebrates and pokes fun at the usual male tropes and shows you a battle of the sexes like never before.

A group of rowdy guys go off to a small town in the English countryside to cheer up their buddy who’s going through a divorce. The collection of gents run the gambit from cliché to well written, to down right refreshingly original. Case in point, one of the friends is openly gay, and yet he’s not a mincing, lisping, stereotype nor is he the butt of all the jokes. He’s just a guy, who happens to be gay, but he’s as rude, crude, and typically “guy-ish” as all the others. That is just one example of the fine writing and depth of characters that was a nice surprise in what at first glance looked to be a silly zomedy.

Oh, but don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of silly to be found here and thank God for that.

The reason the fellows are heading to the proverbial middle of nowhere is supposedly the women outnumber the men there four to one. Unfortunately for them, that turns out to be true and just days earlier a biological weapon was tested there. The aim of that weapon? To turn half the population of an enemy force against the other half. The half that gets changed into drooling, blood-lusting psychos are the women and the focus of their primal rage is anything with a Y chromosome.

Soon the boys are being chased all over by a huge pack of axe, sword, and scissor wielding she-zombies looking to dismember their ah, members, amongst other things. Only teamwork, togetherness, a sonic doohickey, a bit of bromance, and some cross dressing will save the day.

As for particulars, the acting and direction are both very well done. The special effects run from splatstick silly to goretastic. Most importantly, the comedy actually works. You will laugh a lot with this film, something that a lot of “comedies” just don’t seem to be able to pull off. Oh, and is it weird that I think some of the monster-faced zombie chicks are still kind of hot?

The DVD by IFC Films sadly only has a few special features to help entice would be purchasers. There’s a 40-something minute behind the scenes/making of featurette which is easily the best of the extras on the disc. There are a collection of bloopers, some deleted scenes, a few trailers and TV spots, but that’s it. The most notable omission is the lack of any commentary track. I love those little things and whenever one is missing, especially these days; it’s painfully noticeable, like a missing limb.

That said, the main reason to get any DVD is for the movie on it, and not only is this flick great but it both looks and sounds good, so lack of all the usual extras aside, this DVD is still very much worth a get.

About Brian M. Sammons

Brian M. Sammons has penned stories that have appeared in the anthologies: Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the books; Cthulhu Unbound 3, Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu and Flesh Like Smoke. He is also the managing editor of Dark Regions Press’ Weird Fiction line. For more about this guy that neighbors describe as “such a nice, quiet man” you can check out his infrequently updated webpage here: http://brian_sammons.webs.com/ and follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.

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